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HISTORIC AMERICANS 

THE LIFE OF 

Abraham Lincoln 

Sixteenth President of the United States 1861-1865 

By 
ROBERT DICKINSON SHEPPARD, D.D 

Professor of American and English History, Northwestern University 



FAMOUS GETTYSBURG AND SPRINGFIELD 
ADDRESSES, PATHETIC LETTER TO THE 
MOTHER OF FIVE SONS SLAIN IN BATTLE 



SAYINGS, CHARACTERISTICS and CHRONOLOGY 



Copyright, 1898. by The University Association 

Copyright, 1903, by H. G. Campbell Publishing Co. 

Copyright, 1913, by Win. H. Lee 




CHICAGO 
LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS 




<S)CI.A3 4 66 52 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Biography ■ 5 

His Marriage to Mary Todd 34 

Lincoln's Nomination for the Presidency 57 

His Inauguration 64 

Lincoln, the Emancipator 74 

Suggestions From His Life 98 

Early Years of Lincoln 114 

Lincoln's Campaign Against Douglas 133 

Lincoln at Springfield, 1861 — Poem 13.1 

Anecdotes and Characteristics 137 

Money and Selfishness 138 

Lincoln and the Office-Seekers 139 

Loyalty to Friends 140 

How Lincoln Received the News from Gettysburg.... 141 

Lincoln and Douglas 145 

Pardons 145 

No Pardon for Slave Stealers 147 

A Father 's Experience 147 

Lincoln and Stevens 149 

Frederick Douglass on the Inauguration of Lincoln. . . . b">(> 

Lincoln and Eeporters 153 

Lincoln 's Bravery 151 

Lincoln 's Sadness 161 

His Religious Experience 162 

Lee 's Surrender 165 

Lincoln 's First Dollar 166 

Sayings of Lincoln 1 68 

Extracts from Lincoln 's Speeches 170 

Letter to Mother of Five Sons Lost in Battle 173 

The Story of Lincoln for School or Club Program 173 

Lincoln's First Thanksgiving Proclamation 177 

Questions for Review 177 

Subjects for Special Study 178 

Chronological Events in the Life of Lincoln 178 

Bibliography 179 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Portrait and Autograph Frontispiece 

Early Home of Lincoln in Elizabethtown, Ky 9 

Dennis Hanks 11 

House in Coles County, Illinois, in Which Lincoln's 

Father Lived 17 

Lincoln's Pioneer House on the Sangamon River, Built 

and Occupied by Himself 20 

Stephen A. Douglas 24 

Library Chair Used by Lincoln During His Occupancy 

of the White House". 30 

President Lincoln and Master Thad 35 

Mrs. Lincoln in Reception Gown 35 

Andrew Johnson 39 

Lincoln 's Home at Springfield 44 

Richard J. Oglesby 56 

The Wigwam, Chicago, Scene of Nomination of Lincoln 

for Presidency 57 

William H. Seward 59 

President Lincoln and His Cabinet 62 

James Buchanan 64 

Bombardment of Fort Sumter 67 

Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War. 69 

Ford's Theater, Washington, Where Lincoln was Shot 

by Booth 72 

Robert T. Lincoln 138 

The Battle of Bull Run 140 

The Battle of Gettysburg 142 

Jefferson Davis 146 

Frederick Douglass 151 

Last Dispatch of Lincoln to Grant 153 

President Lincoln Visiting the Army of the Potomac, 

Being Received by General McCleUan 155 

General George B. ' McCleUan 156 

The Lincoln Monument, Springfield 160 

The Old State House, Springfield 164 

Charles Sumner 167 

General U. S. Grant . 176 




IT is a far cry from a Kentucky cabin to the White 
House at Washington, from the estate of a poor white 
child in the south to that of Chief Magistrate of the 
United States of America. Yet it is our task to show 
how that distance was spanned in the life of Abraham 
Lincoln, and the story of it should be of the highest in- 
terest to every American youth. 

We are probably not sufficiently removed from the 
times of Abraham Lincoln to estimate him in his full 
proportions. The greater part of the literature that has 
been written concerning him, that is not absolutely 
ephemeral, has been written for a people who reverenced 
him, and who would brook no other than a reverent hand- 
ling of the object of their devotion. Such jealousy, how- 
ever, was needless, for loving hands have written intel- 
ligently amd judicially the story of his life, and of the 
unfolding of his character. They have written with the 
ardor of personal friendship and almost in the heat of the 
exciting days when Lincoln stood as their champion and 
contended for the National Union to which they were 
devoted. 

These circumstances are not favorable to the ex- 

5 



6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

position of the real Lincoln. And yet more than most 
of the great men of history, his individuality was so strik- 
ing, its outlines were so well denned, that even a poor 
artist can trace them, and in his maturer years his action 
was so studied and deliberate — as if he were appealing to 
the solemn verdict of future generations — that it is not 
easy to go far astray in our judgments concerning him. 
Take him for all in all, he furnishes us a striking exam- 
ple taken from our own times, of a typical American who 
was born in poverty and reared amid unlikely surround- 
ings and influences, but who made the most of his slen- 
der opportunities for intellectual culture, kept himself 
pure amid much that was degrading, and step by step, 
attained to nobleness of character, to intellectual strength, 
to honor and station among those who knew him best 
and finally, to the highest eminence of position and honor 
that an American can reach. 

In his career he epitomizes a half century of the most 
interesting and critical conditions of our national life. 
And the progress of events that culminated in the Civil 
War, its conduct, and the work of reconstruction that 
followed it, can nowhere be studied as intelligently as in 
the story of his outlook on the political life of the nation, 
of his political affiliations, and his active participation in 
the settlement of the great questions that involved the 
existence and prosperity of the nation. 

We shall turn first to his ancestry and early environ- 
ment. He was born February 12th in the year 1809, in 
a miserable cabin on the farm of Thomas Lincoln, or 
"Linkhorn.' 5 as he was sometimes called, three miles from 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 7 

Hodgensville in the present county of LaRue in the state 
of Kentucky. Of his ancestry on the Lincoln side, little 
is known save that they were among the early settlers of 
Virginia and were of English descent, and probably were 
Quakers. The mother of Abraham Lincoln was Nancy 
Hanks, whose ancestors came from England to Virginia 
and moved on to Kentucky with the Lincolns, settling 
near them in Mercer County. 

It was while learning his trade as a carpenter in the 
shop of Joseph Hanks, the uncle of Nancy Hanks, that 
Thomas Lincoln met and courted the mother of the great 
president. He was of medium stature, standing five 
feet-ten in his shoes. His complexion was swarthy, his 
hair dark, his eyes gray, his face full and round, his nose 
prominent; he was strong and siaewy; he was peace lov- 
ing but brave enough to fight when occasion demanded, 
as it often did in those rough days in the border state of 
Kentucky; he was of roving disposition, a good story tel- 
ler, and full of anecdote picked up in his wanderings. 
In politics he was a Jackson Democrat, and in religion 
''everything by turns and nothing long." A botch car- 
penter by trade, he soon tired of that and turned farmer, 
though he did not entirely abandon rough carpentry, and 
as a farmer he showed his inconstancy by frequent mi- 
grations from one location to another. 

Nancy Hanks is described as a slender, symmetrical, 
woman of medium height, with dark hair, regular feat- 
ures, and sparkling hazel eyes. Of her it is related, as an 
unusual circumstance in the illiteracy of the time, that 
she possessed the rare accomplishments of reading and 



8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

writing, and taught her husband to write his name. She 
was born to drudgery and her natural beauty soon gave 
place to the faded and woe- begone expression that pov- 
erty and struggle and uncertainty are wont to write on 
the faces and forms of the women of the frontier. The 
first home of her married life was a wretched hovel in 
one of the alleys of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, where her 
first child was born, and a little later she occupied with 
her husband the miserable cabin on Nolin Creek where, 
on account of his thriftlessness, he barely met the neces- 
sities of the little household. 

It was here that Abraham Lincoln was born. The 
manger at Bethlehem was not a more unlikely birth- 
place. And here he remained until he was four years 
old, and then the elder Lincoln migrated to another farm 
some six miles from Hodgensville, on Knob Creek,whose 
clear waters flowed at length into the Ohio, twenty-four 
miles below Louisville. This new move that might have 
proved advantageous — for the banks of the creek and the 
valleys of the region gave great promise of fertility — 
was like Thomas Lincoln's other experiences; only six 
acres out of the two hundred and thirty-eight that made 
up the farm, were worked, and no permanent title to the 
!and was acquired by him. After four years a new mi- 
gration began, this time to Indiana. 

During these yeais of Kentucky life young Lincoln's 
development went on with none of the modern aids. A 
few days of schooling each summer at the hands of 
Zachariah Riney and Caleb Hazel were all the opportu- 
nities that Kentucky offered him. During the re- 







* * *<\- 



The early home of Lincoln in Elizabethtown, Ky. 
From Raymond's "Life of Lincoln." 



io ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

mainder of his time he vegetated. In the fall of 
1816, the spirit of change came over Thomas Lin- 
coln once more. He had had some experience as a 
flat-boatman on two trips to New Orleans, and thought 
to move in that way. He used his skill in car- 
pentry for the construction of a flat-boat, converted 
his personal property into four hundred gallons of 
whiskey, and started with his tools and his whiskey, alone. 
He was ship-wrecked on the raging Ohio but righted his 
boat, rescued most of his whiskey and a few of his tools, 
and floated down to Thompson's Ferry two and a half 
miles west of Troy, in Ferry County, Indiana. Sixteen 
miles distant from the river, he found a place that he re- 
garded a promising location. Thence he started back 
on foot for his wife and children, and on borrowed horses 
he brought the few remaining effects of his family, their 
clothing and bedding and the small stock of kitchen 
utensils. 

The Lincoln farm was situated between the forks of 
the Big and the Little Pigeon Creeks a mile and a half 
east of the little village of Gentryville, in a small well- 
wooded region, full of game. There he built a log cabin 
closed on three sides and open on the fourth. The 
house was about fourteen feet square and floorless. Into 
this comfortless cabin, with few of the ordinary arrange- 
ments for warmth or covering, exposed to all the winds 
that blow, for it was on a hillock and built of poles, he 
conducted his little family. The place was a solitude* 
No road approached it save the trail that Lincoln had 
blazed through the woods. For a whole year they en- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



1 1 



dured the discomforts of this home in the woods, while 
some ground was being cleared and a little crop planted. 
Some relatives followed them from Kentucky the next 
year, and among 
them, Dennis 
Hanks, the young 
cousin of Abraham 
Lincoln. 

In 1817 a new 
log house was 
reared by Thom- 
as Lincoln of un- 
hewed timbers and 
without floor, door 
or windows. Sev- 
en or eight older 
settlers had pre- 
ceded them to this 
region and soon 
a tide of emigra- 
tion poured in, 
sparsely peopling the waste places of the new state of 
Indiana. The nearest hand-mill to Thomas Lincoln was 
ten miles away, whither Abraham carried the grist. Of 
schooling there was little more than in Kentucky, and 
that of a very simple kind. For two years Thomas Lin- 
coln went the even tenor of his way, raising a little corn, 
shooting a little game, failing to provide systematically 
or with any solicitude for the needs of his family. No 
furniture was in the house save the roughest — three-legged 









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-ML 




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®R\ j, ',,:, '•-;. -JkM 






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Dennis Hanks. 



12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

stools for chairs, a log with legs on it for a table > bed- 
steads made of poles fastened at one end to the wall and 
resting on forked sticks, driven into the earthen floor at 
the other end. On these, boards were laid, while leaves 
and old clothing served for the bed. They ate from a 
few pewter dishes, without knives or forks. A dutch oven 
and a skillet, were the sole utensils of their cabin. A 
bed-room in the loft, to which he climbed on pins driven 
in the wall, was the nightly roost of the future president. 

Now the milk sickness appeared, and Thomas Lin- 
coln's carpentry was employed in building rough coffins 
for the dying settlers. He cut out the timber from logs 
with his whip-saw and made rough boxes for a number 
V his friends. Nancy Lincoln was stricken. There was 
not a physician within thirty miles, and no money to pay 
him should he come. Without a hand to relieve her, the 
poor jaded woman, the mother of the great president, 
dropped away on the 5th of October, 18 18, and was 
buried without ceremony in an unmarked grave. She 
had given birth to a man-child on whom time should set 
the seal of greatness. His sole apparent inheritance from 
her, however, seems to have been the tinge of melancholy 
that often clouded his life. In his observations upon 
the making of his character he has little or nothing to 
say of his own mother. The early years of his life were 
years of neglect. He grew up in deprivation, ill-fed, ill- 
clothed, to develop alone in the sunshine and in the 
forest the nature that was in him. 

But a new influence was soon imported into the Lin- 
coln home. After thirteen months of widowhood, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 13 

Thomas Lincoln made a journey to Kentucky, and 
brought home with him a new wife, whom he had known 
and loved many years before as Sally Bush, a woman of 
"great energy and good sense, very neat and tidy in her 
person and manners, and who knew how to manage 
children." She brought with her from her Kentucky 
home a store of luxuries and comforts that the Indiana 
cabin had never known. It took a four-horse team to 
move her effects, and at once she demanded that the 
floorless, windowless and doorless cabin should be made 
habitable. Warm beds were for the first time provided 
for the children. She took off their rags and clothed 
them from her own stores; she washed them and treated 
them with motherly tenderness, and to use her own lan- 
guage, she made them look a little more human. 

Her heart went out at once to young Abe and all was 
changed for him. She discovered possibilities in him 
and set about his training, gratified, loved and directed 
him, and won his heart. She was the mother whom he 
describes as his"saintly mother,his angel of a mother who 
first made him feel like a human being" — and took him 
out of the rut of degradation and neglect and shiftless- 
ness that, if long continued, might have controlled his 
destiny. She insisted that he should be sent to school 
as soon as there was a school to go to; he had already ac- 
quired a little reading and writing and was quick in the 
acquisition of knowledge. 

In the rude school house at Little Pigeon Creek where 
Hazel Dorsey presided, Abraham attended in the winter 
of 1 81 9, and quickly became the best speller in the 



i 4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

school. In the winter of 1822 and '23 he attended An- 
drew Crawford's school in the same place, where manners 
as well as spelling, were a part of the curriculum. He 
was now a lanky lad of fifteen, and rapidly rising to his 
full stature of six feet-four. He was not a beauty with 
his big feet and hands, his shrivelled and yellow skin, 
and his costume of low shoes, and buckskin breeches too 
short by several inches, his linsey-woolsey shirt and coon- 
skin cap; but he was good-humored and gallant, popu- 
lar with the boys and girls, and a leader. 

His last schooling was in 1826, at a school four and a 
half miles from his home, kept by Mr. Swaney. By this 
time he had acquired all the knowledge that the poor 
masters of that frontier region could impart, henceforth he 
must supervise his own education, as the family were too 
poor to spare him if opportunities for learning had pre- 
sented themselves. He must work now in the shop or 
on the farm, or as a hired boy among the neighbors. 
One of his employers tells us that he used to get very 
angry with him, he was always reading or thinking 
when he got a chance, and would talk and crack jokes 
half the time. After the days work was over, by the 
light of the fire, he would sit and cipher on the wooden 
fire shovel. Any book that fell in his way was eagerly 
devoured, and its striking passages were written down 
and preserved. "Aesops Fables" improved his native 
art of pungent story telling, "Robinson Crusoe," Bun- 
yan's ''Pilgrim's Progress" and the Bible were eagerly 
read by him, as were Weem's "Washington" and a his- 
torv of the United States. These few books enriched 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 15 

his mind and laid the basis of his straight-forward, lucid 
literary style. The Revised Statutes of Indiana, that 
could not be loaned from the office of the constable, drew 
him thither like a magnet, and became the basis of his 
legal lore. 

At home, he was the soul of kindness, instantly ready 
for kindly service, full of his jokes and stories. His 
father and his cousin were storytellers and it was often a 
matter of friendly rivalrv which could out-do the other. 
That talent, thus cultivated, was one of the sources of his 
mastery of men. He had a powerful memory and would 
often repeat to his comrades long passages from the books 
he had read, or regale them with parts of the Sunday 
sermon with such perfect mimicry that the tones and 
gestures of the rude preachers of that day were vividly 
repro".dccd. Even in the harvest field, he was wont to 
take the stump and sadly interfere with the labor of the 
day by discoursing to the harvest hands, and more than 
once his father had to break up this diversion with se- 
verity. He had the instincts of the politician and the 
orator. He could please and divert men, and these rude 
early opportunities developed in him the consciousness 
of his power that should one day become so masterful. 

His fondness for the society of his fellows was very 
marked. He could withdraw himself utterly from men 
over a book, but his tastes were strong to be among mea 
All the popular gatherings where men assembled were 
eagerly sought out by him; corn shuckings, log rollings, 
shooting matches, weddings, had a strong fascination for 
him. He enjoyed the sport and was one of the foremost 



16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

to make it. In all rustic sports he was at home. His 
strength was phenomenal, and as a wrestler he seldom 
found his match. 

From the time he left Crawford's school he was using 
all his faculties daily and learning all that the rude world 
about him had to teach him. Dennis Hanks tells us of 
the educational processes of the time, "We learned by 
sight, scent and hearing. We heard all that was said, 
and talked over and over the questions heard, wore them 
slick, greasy and threadbare, went to political and other 
speeches and gatherings as you do now. We would 
hear all sides and opinions, talk them over, discuss them, 
agreeing or disagreeing. He preached, made speeches, 
read for us, explained to us, etc. He attended trials, went 
to court always, read the Revised Statutes of Indiana, 
dated 1824, heard law speeches and listened to law trials. 
He was always reading, scribbling, writing poetry, and 
the like. To Gentryville, about one mile west of Thomas 
Lincoln's farm, Lincoln would go and tell his jokes and 
stories, and was so odd, original, humorous and witty, 
that all the people in town would gather round him and 
he would keep them there till mid-night. He was a good 
talker, a good reader, and a kind of news-boy. " 

Thus he absorbed all the intellectual life that was 
astir, and used his powers as he had occasion, observing 
public business, watching the methods of the attorneys 
at the bar and kindling with their eloquence. Once the 
awkward boy attempted to compliment an attorney for 
his great effort, and years afterward he met him and re- 
called the circumstance, telling him that up to that time 



i8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

it was the best speech he had ever heard, and of his feel- 
ing that if ever he could make such a speech as that his 
soul would be satisfied. High aspiration was evidently 
stirring in him then, and more than once, when twitted 
with his fooling, as his story telling and pranks were 
called, and asked what would ever become of him, he was 
wont to answer that he was going to be President of the 
United States. In the rude circles in which he moved, 
his power of instructing, entertaining and leading was 
recognized. It was a prophecy to him of leadership in 
a larger sphere. 

In 1828, he made his first trip to New Orleans as a flat- 
boatman at eight dollars a month. The trip was full of 
adventure, and attended with some danger, but it was a 
profitable one for his employer, and one of enlargement 
of mind for the employed. From that time till 1830, 
when he became of age, he worked among the neighbors 
or for his father. And then it was determined to emi- 
grate to Illinois. There, at a point ten miles west of De- 
catur, the Lincolns settled, and Abraham's last filial act 
before his majority was to split rails for the fencing of 
the ploughed land of the new homestead. Then he was 
free and the home ties were sundered, though his love 
for his step-mother was often manifested in later years by 
frequent gifts of money and frequent visits. 

He took odd jobs in the country round and the pay 
was all his own. In 1831, he went to New Orleans on a 
flat-boat which he helped to build. The boat was 
launched on the Sangamon, stranded on a dam, and re- 
lieved by Ivincoln's ingenuity, and started again on a sue- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 19 

cessful voyage, laden with pork, hogs and corn. It was 
on this trip that his reflective mind evolved an invention 
for helping flat-boats over snags and shoals. The inven- 
tion was patented, but like many another patent, failed 
to enrich the owner. It was on this trip that Lincoln 
observed for the first time some of the abominations of 
the slave trade in the City of New Orleans. It depressed 
him and drew from him the emphatic, almost prophetic 
statement, ' c If I ever get a chance to hit slavery, I'll hit 
it hard." 

He found his way back to New Salem where he kept 
store for the same employer that sent him to New Orleans. 
There he won his way to consideration by his genial ways, 
his gift of story telling, and his strength and skill in 
wrestling. There, too, he found an English grammar 
and mastered it by the light of pine shavings, in the long 
evening hours. 

In 1832, the Black Hawk War broke out. Lincoln en- 
listed, and though without military experience, his pop- 
ularity won him the captaincy of his company by popu- 
lar election. His career as an officer was not a brilliant 
one. His command was an unsoldierly company of 
American citizens who respected their captain, but who 
were unwilling to subject themselves to very strict disci- 
pline. They did no fighting and were discharged from 
service after a brief campaign, and Lincoln re-enlisted as 
a private in the Independent Spy Company. He was 
wont afterwards to excite much amusement by his stories 
of this bloodless war. Yet it was a school to him that 
revealed his relations to his country and helped to fit him 



20 



ABRAHAM. LINCOLN. 



for the great duties of Commander-in-Chief in the War 
of the Rebellion. 

Returning to New Salem after the war, his friends 
urged him, in view of his popularity in the recent war, 




Lincoln's Pioneer House on the Sangamon River. 
Built and Occupied by Himself. 

to become a candidate for the State Legislature. His ap- 
pearance in debate, and the favorable impression he made, 
settled the question of his candidacy for his friends. He 
felt that an election was an impossibility for him at that 
time, but he undertook the canvass. It was the custom 
then for every candidate to stand on his own merits with- 
out the aid of a nominating convention. Mr. Lincoln at 



21 



this time was nominally a Jackson Democrat, though 
some of his statements in his first campaign for office re- 
sembled very closely Whig utterances, and he will be 
found speedily to be on that side. 

He issued a manifesto to the people of Sangamon 
County on the question of local improvements, propos- 
ing the improvement of the Sangamon River. He an- 
nounced himself in favor of usury laws which would limit 
the rate of interest to be paid in the state. He was in fa- 
vor of education, and of the enactment of sundry laws that 
would benefit the farming community in which he lived. 
His manifesto was that of a crude and immature states- 
man — or better, perhaps, of a young politician, seeking 
to adjust himself to the popular opinions about him and 
to reach public office thereby. He was defeated at the 
election, but he had the satisfaction of knowing, that the 
people who knew him best gave him their votes. The 
canvass, however, gave him a wider acquaintance with 
the people of the district and established him in their 
eyes as a young man of considerable promise. 

In default of a political opening, the question of his 
future career pressed upon him. He could earn a poor 
livelihood with his brawny arms, but to this he was in- 
disposed, feeling, as he did, that there was a larger des- 
tiny before him than of mere manual labor. He tried 
clerking in a store, then merchandising on credit, which 
last experience ended disastrously and left him a burden 
of debt. Then he began the study of law, with borrowed 
books. He put his new knowledge into practice by writ- 
ing deeds, contracts, notes and other legal papers for his 



22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

neighbors, following prescribed forms, and conducting 
small cases in justice's courts without remuneration. 
This was his law school, self-conducted. Volumes on sci- 
ence were at the same time eagerly devoured by him, and 
the few newspapers on which he could lay hands were 
the sources of his political information. Burns and 
Shakespeare were his especial delight. 

To pay his way, he won the good opinion of the sur- 
veyor of Sangamon County, who appointed him dep- 
uty, and gave him a chance to acquire a knowledge of 
surveying, in which he became an expert, lie was called 
hither and yon about the county as a surveyor, and was 
made arbiter in disputes on Hues and corners. Best of 
all, he earned a good living and made many friends for 
the future. 

From 1833 to 1836, he was postmaster of New Salem, 
as a Jackson appointee on the score of right opinions. 
The emoluments of the position were not burdensome. 
He kept his office in his hat. 

In 1834, he was again a candidate for the Legislature. 
This time lie leaned to the Whig party. It was during 
this year that his personal effects, including his survey- 
ing instruments, were sold under the hammer by the 
sheriff to satisfy a judgment against him on account of 
his unsuccessful career as a merchant. But warm per- 
sonal friendship intervened to save his property and keep 
him in courage for the work of his life. 

The campaign of 1834 was personally conducted, as 
was that of 1832. In the harvest field, at the grocery or 
on the highway, wherever he could find men to listen, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 23 

he interested them in his cause and his personality, 
chiefly the latter, Where he was known he was wel- 
comed, and where he found it necessary to make himself 
known, his auditors soon made the discovery that he 
belonged to the singed cat variety. With his calico 
shirt, short trousers, rough brogans, and straw hat with- 
out a band, he raised a laugh at his appearance that was 
soon turned to applause at his knowledge and his skill 
in presenting it. He headed the poll on election day, 
and appreciating the fact that a new outfit was necessary 
to comport with his dignity as a legislator, he borrowed 
two hundred dollars from Coleman Smoot, an admirer 
who had never seen him, and got himself up in the best 
clothes he had ever worn. The loan was scrupulously 
repaid. The time up to the session of the Legislature 
was spent in preparation for his new responsibilities, in 
reading and writing. 

O CI 

He had enough of his two hundred dollars remaining 
to pay his passage on the stage coach to the scene of the 
Legislature at Vandalia. That body was overwhelming- 
ly Democratic in its political complexion, and set the 
pace for Illinois of that class of legislation so common in 
new countries: the creation of public debt and the 
starting of great and ill-considered public improvements, 
and the licensing of banks with great privileges, and 
practically no guarantees, a class of legislation that 
brought on the financial collapse of 1S37. The legisla- 
ture represented the overwhelming majority of the people 
and accomplished their behests. All were crazed with 
the spirit of speculation, all were similarly responsible, 



24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and all suffered in the same general consequences. Mr. 
Lincoln swam with the stream, voted for all the wild-cat 
measures which, according to the best wisdom of the 
time, were essential to the prosperity of the state. He 

was a silent 
member, how- 
ever, at this ses- 
sion of the Leg- 
islature, though 
he served on 
the committee 
on Public Ac- 
counts and Ex- 
penditures. 

It was at this 
session of the 
legislature that 
he met Stephen 
A. Douglas, with 
whose later ca- 
reer his own 
was destined to 
be so closely in- 
terwoven, and 
whom at his first meeting he characterized as the "least 
man he ever saw. ' ' In time he readily accorded him the 
title of "The Little Giant," with whose powers he, only, 
seemed able to cope. This legislature was beset, as lat- 
er legislatures of Illinois have been, by a corrupt and 
persistent body of so-called log rollers, who were on 




Stephen A. Douglas. 
Born 1813. Died 1861 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 25 

hand to push their schemes by persuasion and corrupt- 
ion. But no taint attached to young Lincoln, who, if 
he were carried away like the other legislators of the 
time, by schemes of artificial prosperity, was beyond the 
reach of bribery. 

In 1836, he was again a candidate for the legislature, 
self-nominated, for this was before the age of caucuses 
and conventions. In the Journal of New Salem he an- 
nounces his platform. He favors extending to all whites 
who pay taxes or bear arms (not excluding women) the 
right of suffrage. If elected, he should consider the 
whole people of the district as his constituents, regard- 
less of the manner of their voting, and while acting as 
their representative he would be governed by their will 
on all subjects on which they should make known their 
will, and on other subjects he would follow his own 
judgment as to what would advance their interests. He 
further announced that he was in favor of distributing 
the proceeds of the sales of public lands to the several 
states, to enable each state in common with others, to 
dig canals and construct railroads without borrowing 
money and paying the interest on it. On the question 
of national politics, he announced his adhesion to the 
standard bearer of the Whigs. 

For two months the campaign was conducted in the 
rough and ready manner peculiar to those times. Hot 
words were bandied, personalities were indulged in, pis- 
tols were frequently drawn, and the personal prowess of 
the candidate was one of his strong claims to the respect 
of a rough constituency. At no point was Lincoln lack- 



26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ing in his knowledge of his audiences. They had had 
demonstrations of his physical prowess. Popular re- 
port had credited him with fearlessness, and his plain 
strong reasoning, his humor and skillful repartee did 
the rest. 

It was the custom for political antagonists to address 
the same audiences, or at least for both sides to get a 
hearing at the same time and place. It was during this 
campaign that Geo. Forquer, who had been a Whig in 
the legislature of 1834, and had changed his views on 
being appointed registrar of the Land Office, presumed 
to call Lincoln to account. Forquer had aroused much 
attention as a political turn-coat, and likewise by his 
sudden prosperity in being able to build the finest house 
in Springfield, on which he set up the only lightning 
rod of which the region could boast. He listened to 
Lincoln's speech in defense of the principles that he had 
recently repudiated, and when he had finished he arose 
to answer, with a fine assumption of superiority, saying 
that the young man would have to be taken down, and 
he was sorry that the task devolved upon him. He there- 
upon proceeded to take him down in a strong Democratic 
speech. When he had concluded Mr. Lincoln replied to 
his arguments, and then alluded to Mr. Forquer's re- 
mark that the young man must be taken down. Turn- 
ing to his audience, he said: 

"It is for you to say whether I am down or up. The 
gentleman has alluded to my being a young man. I am 
older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of poli- 
ticians. I desire to live and I desire place and distinct- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 27 

ion as a politician, but I would rather die now than, like 
this gentleman, live to see the day that I would have to 
erect a lightning- rod to protect a guilty conscience from 
an offended God." 

Another Democratic orator met his Waterloo in an en- 
gagement with Lincoln in the same campaign. Dick 
Taylor was severely Democratic in theory, denouncing 
the Whig aristocracy and making much of his sympathy 
with the hard-handed toiling masses, but in practice he 
adorned himself with splendid apparel, and shone con- 
spicuously with ruffled shirt, silk vest, and an impressive 
watch chain. On one occasion when Taylor was parad- 
ing his democracy and denouncing the aristocratic Whigs, 
Lincoln edged up to the platform, and gave a jerk to 
Taylor's vest, that exposed his ruffled shirt, his gold 
Watch and chain and pendant jewelry. It was a move- 
ment that took all the wind out of Taylor's sails and 
hardly needed the speech which Mr. Lamon credits to 
this occasion, which has so much of personal interest in 
it, that we repeat it. 

"While Taylor was making his charges against the 
Whigs over the country, riding in fine carriages, wearing 
ruffled shirts, kid gloves, massive gold watch chain with 
large gold seals, and flourishing a heavy gold-headed 
cane, I was a poor boy hired on a flat-boat at eight dol- 
lars a month and had only one pair of breeches to my 
back, and they were buckskin, and if you know the na- 
ture of buckskin, when wet and dried by the sun, they 
will shrink, and mine kept shrinking until they left sev- 
eral inches of my legs bare between the top of my socks 



28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

and the lower part of my breeches, and whilst I was 
growing taller, they were becoming shorter, and so much 
tighter that they left a bine streak around my legs that 
can be seen to this day. If you call this aristocracy I 
plead guilty to the charge." 

Mr. Lincoln was elected by a larger vote than any 
other candidate. Sangamon County, that had usually 
gone Democratic, went Whig by more than four hundred 
majority. The Convention System was now taking root 
in the west. Some of the members of the legislature of 
1836 and 1837, among whom was Stephen A. Douglas, 
were nominated by conventions, and hereafter the Whigs 
are compelled to fall into line. Elections are to be con- 
ducted no more on the self-nominating plan and person- 
ally conducted canvass. But national issues and national 
parties are to control in state affairs. This change, in the 
minds of many, was prejudicial to the real interests of 
state affairs and certainly detracted much from the gro- 
tesqueness and individuality displayed in the self-nominat- 
ing and self-conducted campaign. Men now stood upon 
the platform of a party, when they accepted a nomination. 
Mr. Lincoln was hereafter to be a party man, sometimes 
leading his party, but all the time loyal to it, and seeking 
to force no movement until the rank and file of his party 
were abreast with him. 

In national politics, at the time of the meeting of the 
legislature of 1836-37, the country was on the verge of a 
panic. The deposits of the United States had been with- 
drawn from the U. S. Bank and deposited in specie-pay- 
ing state banks. The whigs had passed an act requiring 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 29 

the funds of the government to be deposited with the 
states, the act to go into effect Jan. 1st, 1837. A month 
before this date the Legislature of Illinois met at Van- 
dalia. Thither Mr. Lincoln went with the intention of 
being an active member. He had been instructed by 
his constituents to vote for a system of internal improve- 
ments. All parts of the state were clamoring for them 
and men of all parties were of one mind in the matter. 
Lines of railroads, improvement of rivers, the Illinois 
canal, and the location of the capital and the setting up 
of state banks, were the great questions of the session. 
Members of the legislature interested in one locality 
swapped votes to other localities for votes in favor of 
their project. Thus the log-rolling went on till nearly 
every county in the state shared in the plunder of their 
common treasury which was recruited by issues of bonds 
that ought to have paralyzed any sane company of leg- 
islators who could foresee the consequences; but they 
were intoxicated by the spirit of speculation. 

Among the schemes in which Mr. Lincoln chiefly fig- 
ured was the removal of the capital to Springfield. As 
a member of the Long Nine from Sangamon County — so 
called because their average height was over six feet— he 
so skillfully disposed of the votes of himself and his col- 
leagues, in return for votes on behalf of Springfield, that 
that city was selected as the capital of the state. Ford 
estimates, in his"History of Illinois," that it was made to 
cost the state six millions of dollars for the removal of 
the capital from Vandalia, and naming the men who 
participated in this reckless legislation and the high po- 



30 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



sitions to which most of them later attained, he declares 
all of them to be ''spared monuments of popular wrath, 
evincing how safe it is to a politician, but how disas- 
trous it may be to the country to keep along with the 
present fervor of the people. " 

Mr. Lincoln, in his part in the proceedings of the leg- 
islature, obeyed the will 
of his constituents in lo- 
cating the capital at 
Springfield, and the will 
of the people at large in 
voting for a general sys- 
tem of improvements at 
the public expense, and 
his own judgment was 
committed to the policy. 
The fruition of their reck- 
less legislation was debt 
I and disaster,all had sinned 
and all suffered, and the 

Library Chair used by Lincoln during his rkPttslripe; \vf»rf> nr>r vi<;ifpr1 
Occupancy of the White House. penalties Vv ere 110t \ lSlteCl 

upon the legislators who 
recorded the popular will. More creditable to Lincoln's 
mind and heart at this session of the state legisla- 
ture was the protest in which he joined, against the act- 
ion of the legislature < on the subject of slavery. No 
state was more pronounced than Illinois on the subject of 
repressing the Abolition movement. Illinois had de- 
cided once for all, in 1824, that it was not disposed 
to become a slave state, but its people had 110 sympathy 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 31 

as yet with the movement to interfere with slavery in the 
South. The name Abolitionist was counted by the peo- 
ple of Illinois as hardly better than Horse-thief and the 
so-called Black Code of the state, discriminating against 
negroes whether free or slave would have been a disgrace 
to Turkey. 

In 1836, Elijah P. Lovejoy, who had been publishing 
a moderately anti-slavery paper in St. Louis, moved to 
Alton, where he found the opposition even stronger than 
in Missouri, and his press was broken up and thrown into 
the river. He again set up his press which was to pub- 
lish a religious paper, and not distinctively an abolition 
paper, though he claimed the right as an American citi- 
zen to publish whatever he pleased on any subject, hold- 
ing himself answerable to the laws of the country in so 
doing. Only occasionally, did he discuss the subject of 
slavery, but so repugnant was abolition sentiment to the 
people about him that his office was again destroyed. The 
setting up of another press was followed by his murder 
in defence of his life and his property. It was during 
this state of feeling, that culminated in Lovejoy' s mur- 
der, that Lincoln bravely wrote a protest against the ex- 
treme action of the legislature on the slavery question, 
and obtained the signature thereto of a colleague with his 
own. The resolutions were read and ordered to be spread 
upon the journal of the house. In these resolutions he 
stated that he believed that the institution of slavery is 
founded upon injustice and bad policy, but that the pro- 
mulgation of abolition doctrine tends rather to increase 
than to abate its evils. That the Congress of the United 



32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

States has no power under the Constitution to interfere 
with the institution of slavery in the different states. 

That the Congress of the United States has the power 
under the Constitution to abolish slavery in the District 
of Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exer- 
cized unless at the request of the people of the district. 
On this question he saw clearer than his colleagues and 
came nearest to the view of wise statesmanship that at 
that stage of the game would make the abolition of slav- 
ery the result of growth and of the logic of events, rather 
than the result of upheaval and revolution. We do not 
decry the work of the abolitionists, nor would he in his 
later years. They preached the iniquity of slavery and 
roused the moral sense of the nation for the final struggle 
when the hand that wrote the protest of 1838 might 
write the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, with a 
possibility of its enforcement. Between these documents 
lies, perhaps, the most critical period of American his- 
tory. Lincoln is at length to be the foremost figure of 
that period, moving without haste, but steadily, to the 
accomplishment of that supreme act which the impatient 
Abolitionist would have performed at once, regardless of 
the wreck and ruin which the attempt at immediate en- 
forcement of his policy would work. 

Mr. Lincoln was again elected to the legislature in 
1838, and had reached such prominence that he was the 
candidate of his party for speaker. He was not elected, 
but remained on the finance committee and took a hand 
in trying to extricate the state from the almost hopeless 
bankruptcy into which it had been plunged by the ex- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 33 

travagant legislation of 1836 and '37. Mr. Lincoln was 
elected again in 1840, but did not appear in the session 
of 1 84 1 and 1842 for reasons of a private nature. His 
early love for Ann Rutledge had met with disappoint- 
ment and he mourned over her grave with a heart well- 
nigh broken. Others had excited his interest, but the 
old love was the ideal love for him, and no later affection 
could compare with it, so that although he. believed it 
was proper for him to settle down in married life, his loy- 
alty to such affection as he had known, and his honorable 
character, made it difficult for him to assume the vows of 
married life on any other basis than full and complete 
devotion to the woman whom he should call his wife. 

In 1839, ne was thrown much in the society of Miss 
Mary Todd of Lexington, Ky., and he became engaged 
to her. The date of the wedding was set, but he did not 
appear. His struggle with himself as to whether he was 
doing right well-nigh unsettled his mind, and his friends 
withdrew him to the quiet of Mr. Speed's home in Ken- 
tucky, till this crisis of his history should pass. When he 
returned, his relations to Miss Todd were resumed. She 
was a clever writer, with some taste for politics, and dur- 
ing the period of their courtship they beguiled them- 
selves with political writing in the Sangamon Journal un- 
der the nom de plume of "Rebecca." The letters were 
cleverly done in the style of caricature and bore hard upon 
Mr. James Shields, an aspiring Democratic politician of 
somewhat pompous and pretending manner. Mr. Lin- 
coln chivalrously assumed the sole authorship of the let- 
ters, for the protection of Miss Todd, and speedily found 



34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

himself embroiled with Mr. Shields, who demanded sat- 
isfaction. Nothing but a duel or an abject apology 
would be accepted, and the mutual friends of Mr. Lincoln 
and Mr. Shields were kept busy arranging the prelimi- 
naries of a contest. Mr. Lincoln treated the matter with 
indifference, chose broadswords as the weapons, and 
agreed upon the time and place for meeting, with little 
thought that the duel would ever come off. He was op- 
posed to dueling, and in choosing the weapons, he avoided 
pistols to avert a tragedy, and chose cavalry broadswords, 
knowing, as Arnold says, that if the meeting should take 
place nothing but a tragedy could have prevented its be- 
ing a farce. The matter was adjusted by the publication 
of a statement that while Mr. Lincoln was the author of 
the article signed "Rebecca," he had no intention of injur- 
ing the personal or private character or standing of Mr. 
Shields as a gentleman or man, and that he did not 
think that the article could produce such an effect, and 
had Mr. Lincoln anticipated such an effect he would 
have forborne to write it. Thus this serio-comic affair 
passed with little result save to emphasize the vanity 
and sensitiveness of Gen. Shields, and the cleverness and 
candor of Mr. Lincoln. 

Mr. Lincoln carried out his engagement with Mary 
Todd, and was married to her in November, 1842, with 
forebodings that did not promise well for a happy married 
life. Possibly, as Mr. Lincoln feared, they were not alto- 
gether fitted for each other. But never, by word or deed, 
was he disloyal to his marriage vows, nor did he ex- 
pose the wounds of his heart. 



36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

He was not able at this time to provide a home of his 
own, but took up his residence at the Globe Tavern in 
Springfield at an expense of four dollars a week for board 
and lodging for himself and wife. Mr. Lincoln had been 
licensed as an attorney in 1837, an( ^ na( ^ removed to 
Springfield when that city became the capital of the state. 
Among the men who were his compeers, some of whom 
afterwards attained prominence, were Stephen T. Logan, 
Stephen A. Douglas, B. D. Baker, John T.Stuart, Ninian 
W. Edwards, Jesse B. Thomas, and others of local re- 
nown. 

Mr. Lincoln's reputation, thus far, has been as a poli- 
tician in Sangamon Co. Politics will continue to have 
the chief fascination for his mind, but law will be his 
profession and his means of livelihood. He found his 
first law partner in his friend John T. Stuart, to whom he 
had previously been indebted for the loan of books from 
which to learn the law. In a little dingy office in the 
then unkempt town of Springfield, the firm of Stuart & 
Lincoln was installed, and Lincoln began his career of 
divided interest between politics and law. He was still 
a member of the legislature, and though the affairs of the 
state were in sad need of attention, the politics of the 
time began to be confined to national issues, and Mr. Lin- 
coln, like the rest, began to occupy himself with a sur- 
vey of national affairs. 

In January, 1837, he delivered an address before the 
Springfield Lyceum on the Perpetuation of our Free In- 
stitutions, which shows that the young lawyer had now 
attained to the full consciousness and dignity of an Amer- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 37 

ican Citizen, who prizes his birth-right and seeks calmly 
to discern the perils of the nation, and earnestly to put 
her in a position of security and permanence. This 
speech marks him at that early date, as more than a pol- 
itician grabbing and compromising in the state assembly 
for local interests; rather as an American citizen open- 
ing his eyes to the greatness of the nation, the difficulties 
and the dangers that hazard the common weal. 

As his physical vision overtopped that of his fellows, 
so now he seems to look out on a broader political hori- 
zon than they. His eye henceforth will not be with- 
drawn from that wide view until all shall be clear to 
him, and he shall be accepted as his nation's prophet and 
seer. The speech to which I refer may be overcharged 
with rhetoric, a vice that is common with young orators, 
but it has the true ring of sincerity and patriotism, and 
time will add the charm and force of directness and sim- 
plicity to his style. 

In all the political campaigns of the time his voice was 
heard in the meetings of politicians, in the grocery, or the 
office or on the rostrum. He was a central figure in these 
meetings. He studied politics, got in shape his argu- 
ments, and learned the art of putting things to an aver- 
age American audience, as few politicians have acquired 
it. The question of the sub-treasury was an absorbing 
question of 1840. It was the Democratic party measure 
to provide for the convenient and safe keeping of the na- 
tional funds. It has proved a wise expedient, but Mr. 
Lincoln opposed it, as did his party. Apparently, on 
questions of public credit, fiscal expedients and finance, 



38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

he was not destined to be an authority. It was on the 
questions of freedom and union, and the measures that 
make for them, that he was to specialize and succeed. 
Meanwhile, he was working hard at the bar, but leaving 
no opportunity unused to evince his interest in politics. 

In 1843, he aspired to run for Congress, but was dis- 
tanced in the race for the Whig nomination by E. D. 
Baker. He was appointed a delegate to the nominating, 
convention, and magnanimously served. He humorous- 
ly alludes to his predicament in writing to his friend 
Speed, where he says, "In getting Baker the nomination 
I shall be fixed a good deal like a fellow who is made 
groomsman to a man that has cut him out and is marry- 
ing his own dear 'gal.' " 

In 1844, he was a candidate for election on the Whig 
ticket, and stumped the state for Mr. Clay, for President. 
In joint debates and independent speeches he maintained 
his Whig principles and chivalrously labored for the 
idol of his party. The defeat of Clay was, to him, a 
source of sorrow, but setting aside his political disap- 
pointment, he studiously set himself to the discharge of 
his professional duties until 1846, when he was nomina- 
ted for Congress and elected. Peter Cartwright was the 
standard-bearer of the opposition. He was a doughty 
antagonist, whose clerical relations were dead weight 
upon him, and Mr. Lincoln easily "got the preacher" as 
he expressed it, and with the aid of Democratic votes. 
He was the only Whig member from Illinois, and thus 
came into special prominence. Some of his colleagues 
from the state were Wentworth, McCiernand, Fickli«\ 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 39 

Richardson and Turner. Douglas had just reached the 
Senate. 

The roll of the house at this, the 30th Congress, 
showed a galaxy of great names. Robert Winthrop was 
the Speaker, and among the Whigs were John Quincy 
Adams, Horace Mann, Colla- 
mer, Stephens and Toombs; 
and among the Democrats 
were Wilmot and Cobb, Mc- 
Dowell and Andrew Johnson, 
while Webster and Calhoun, 
and Benton and Clayton were 
members of the Senate. 

Lincoln at once took an act-, 
ive part in the discussions 
that related to the Mexican 
War, that scheme of the 
Southern statesmen to acquire 
more territory for the ex- 
pansion of slavery. He held, as did the Whigs, that the 
war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun, 
and in his famous u Spot Resolutions," he called upon 
the president to put his finger on the spot on American 
soil on which the Mexicans were aggressors, as the 
president had alleged. Mr. Lincoln did, however, vote 
with his party to give supplies to the troops and thanks 
to the generals who conducted the war, while censuring 
the president for his part in bringing it on. Mr. Lin- 
coln had a weary time explaining to his constituents 
what they considered his inconsistency in attacking the 




Andrew Johnson. 
Born 1808. Died 1875. 



40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

president for bringing on the war and then voting sup- 
plies for its conduct. Before his return from the east 
and after the session of Congress, he made several cam- 
paign speeches in New England, enlarged his acquaint- 
ance and became more familiar with the elements that 
should enter into future politics. 

His second session passed without any striking inci- 
dent save one that indicated his attitude to the slavery 
question. On the Wilmot Proviso, which favored the 
purchase of Mexican territory and prohibiting of slavery 
thereon, he voted, as often as it was up, in the affirma- 
tive, and he himself proposed a resolution for the gradu- 
al compensated emancipation of slaves in the District of 
Columbia. Thus ended his congressional career in 
which, in the national arena, he had gained a unique 
outlook on public affairs, and where he won some repu- 
tation as a consistent Whig, loyal to his party, and op- 
posed to the extension of slavery; and likewise as a po- 
litical antagonist, clear in statement, fertile in illustra- 
tion, and with a talent for ridicule and sarcasm that was 
difficult to be reckoned with. He easily yielded the 
nomination to the next Congress to his friend, Stephen 
T. Logan, and continued the practice of law, but with 
an abiding interest in national affairs, ready when the 
time should again come, to take his part in the struggle. 

From 1848 to i860, his chief work as a lawyer was to 
be done, and likewise the work that should determine 
his selection as a candidate for the presidency of the 
United States. In i860, the scene of his legal services 
lay in the eighth judicial circuit in which Sangamon 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 41 

County was included till 1859. The court itinerated 
from county to county, and Mr. Lincoln followed it, 
first on a borrowed horse, then on a nag of his own, which 
he cared for himself, and later, in a second-hand buggy. 
His coming was always welcomed at the hotel where he 
was wont to stop and by the lawyers on the circuit. Un- 
complaining, genial and unselfish, he met the incidents 
and inconveniences of this itinerant life in so cheerful a 
manner, and his pranks and stories were so enjoyable, 
that outside of the court room and in it, no one was more 
popular than he. His honesty was a proverb. No shady 
case had any standing or encouragement from him. Pov- 
erty was no bar to the securement of his services, and 
when he entered on a case to which his judgment and 
conscience were committed he entered upon it with a 
thoroughness and fearlessness which seldom met with 
failure. 

Judge Caton, lor many years one of the judges of the 
Supreme Court and intimate with Mr. Lincoln, says of 
him: "He was a close reasoner, reasoning by analogy and 
usually enforcing his views by apt illustrations. His 
mode of speaking was generally of a plain and unimpas- 
sioned character, yet abounding with eloquence, imagin- 
ation and fancy. His great reputation for integrity was 
well deserved. The most punctilious honor ever marked 
his professional and private life. He seemed entirely ig- 
norant of the art of deception and dissimulation. His 
frankness and candor were elements which contributed to 
his professional success. If he discovered a weak point 
in his cause he frankly admitted it and thereby prepared 



42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the mind to accept the more readily his mode of avoid- 
ing it. No one ever accused him of taking an unfair or 
underhanded advantage in the whole course of his pro- 
fessional career." 

He put the kindest construction possible on the frail- 
ties of his fellow men. He sympathized with the un- 
fortunate, and relieved them to the utmost of his ability 
in their distress. He was true as steel to his clear appre- 
hension of intellectual and moral truth, unyielding in 
matters of honor and principle. He could flay an adver- 
sary relentlessly who by cowardice or meanness, by ma- 
lice or greed, exposed himself to his denunciation. He 
could be tender as a woman to misfortune or suffering. 
He was wondrously constituted to be a great jury lawyer 
with his power of analysis, his logical faculties, his gen- 
erous sympathies, his apt illustration, his candor and his 
irresistable humor. 

He was offered a lucrative partnership in Chicago with 
Grant Goodrich on his return from congress, but he pre- 
ferred his old circuit and his old companions. Though 
he was frequently called to the trial of cases in prominent 
courts in his own and other states, and responded to the 
call, his heart was with his comrades on his old circuit, 
and he could not be tempted from it. The day before 
he left Springfield for Washington, in 1861, he went to 
the office to settle up some unfinished business. After 
disposing of it he gathered a bundle of papers and books 
he wished to take with him. Presently he addressed Mr, 
Herndon, his old partner: 

"Billy, how long have we been together?" 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 43 

"Over sixteen years," he answered. 

"We've never had a cross word during all that time, 
have we?" 

Then, starting to go, he paused and asked that the 
sign-board of Lincoln & Herndon which hung on its 
rusty hinges at the foot of the stairs be allowed to re- 
main. 

'•Let it hang there undisturbed," he said, with a 

;ignificant lowering of his voice. "Give our clients to 

understand that the election of a president makes no 

change in the firm of Lincoln & Herndon. If I live I 

am coming back sometime and then we'll go right on 

practicing law as if nothing had happened." 

If Lincoln had had no other career than as a lawyer in 
Central Illinois, he would have occupied a unique place 
amon y the great lawyers of the state. But his mind was 
always at work upon the higher problems of the national 
life. He declined to run for congress in 1848 in favor of 
Stephen T. Logan, who suffered defeat. He declined the 
governorship of Oregon, preferring to remain in closer 
touch with national affairs in Illinois, than he would be 
if he removed to that distant region. 

In i8<;o, he again declined to be a candidate for con- 
gress, though he was strongly urged. He was coming to 
the opinion that the sectional agitation between the North 
and South was beyond the skill of politicians to settle 
by the methods that had been and were still, being 
tried. He had hoped that time would heal the animosi- 
ties that threatened the existence of the union and the 
principle* of free government on American soil. In con- 




Lincoln's Home at Springfield. 
in front of the house stands the tree planted by Lincoln previous 

to 1850. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 45 

versation with intimate friends, in 1850, lie stated that, 
"the time is coming when we must all be Democrats or 
Abolitionists." Though he acquiesced in the measures 
of the Whig party, which were favorable to compromise 
to avert strife, he spoke out his own conviction as to the 
injustice of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and seemed 
to feel disheartened as to any improvement as things 
were going. 

In 1852, his fellow citizens at Springfield chose him to 
deliver a eulogy upon the life and services of Henry Clay. 
This discourse was not remarkable in itself, save as it 
was the occasion to Mr. Lincoln for emphasizing the 
opinion of Mr. Clay in regard to slavery and the proper 
method of putting an end to it. Mr. Lincoln agreed 
with him in his aversion to the institution and the advis- 
ability of gradual emancipation by the voluntary action 
of the people of the slave states, and the transporting of 
the freedmen to Africa. Compensated and voluntary 
emancipation and transportation were the features of 
his plan, and he hoped that it might be realized. Then, 
assuming the tones and language of a prophet, he said: 

"Pharaoh's country was cursed with plagues and his 
hosts were drowned into the Red Sea for striving to retain 
a captive people who had already served them more than 
four hundred years. May like disaster never befall us. 
If, as the friends of colonization hope, the present and 
coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means 
succeed in freeing our laud from the dangerous presence 
of slavery, and at the same time restoring a captive peo- 
ple to their long lost fatherland with bright prospects for 



46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the future, and this, too, so gradually that neither races 
nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will 
indeed be a glorious consummation." 

If only that policy could have prevailed what sacrifice 
of human blood and treasure, what agony and sorrow, it 
might have saved! But it was not to be. 

The Fugitive Slave Law had been passed and in the 
Dred Scott Decision, not only was that law to be upheld, 
but the most extravagant demands of slavery were to be 
confirmed by the highest court in the land. Measures 
were to be set on foot to open the territories north of 36 . 
30" to the spread of slaven'. The Missouri Compromise 
was to be repealed and the agent of this legislation, its 
crafty and eloquent advocate, was to be a son of Illinois, 
the early compeer and antagonist of Mr.Lincoln, Stephen 
A. Douglas. His rise in politics had been phenomenal. 
His abilities were great and his ambition more than kept 
pace with them. His objective point was the presidency 
of the United States. If he could become the candidate 
of a united Democracy for that high office, the coveted 
prize was within his reach. To this end, he lent his great 
abilities to the carrying of those measures that would be 
acceptable to the pro-slavery element of the nation. He 
identified himself actively with every movement that 
sought to increase the area of territory for slavery expan- 
sion. He held with Calhoun and Davis that, under the 
Constitution, slaveholders could take their slaves into the 
territories of the United States, subject only to the Mis- 
souri Compromise. This obstruction, as chairman of the 
committee on territories, he desired to set aside in the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 47 

Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which opened that vast area of 
land to settlers who could vote up or down the question 
of slavery, within their limit. With the passing of this 
bill, the period of compromise was over. Friends of 
Union and Freedom saw that there was now no prospect 
of peace without submission to the extravagant and re- 
volting pretensions of the pro-slavery party. 

It was now that Mr. Lincoln girded himself for the 
great contest of his life, and at once, as if by common 
consent, he became the leader of the Anti-Nebraska party, 
as Mr. Douglas was the leader of the opposing party in 
the North, and attention was fastened on these two great 
antagonists whose strife should continue until freedom or 
slavery should prevail. It was in October, 1854, that 
they first measured weapons at the Illinois State fair. 
Mr. Douglas defended his position with his usual ability 
and Mr. Lincoln was put up to answer him. There was 
a marked contrast in the men. One was small of stature 
but of great physical force, a successful campaigner, a 
skilled debater, ready, resourceful and ambitious, con- 
tending for measures that could result only in unsatis- 
factory compromises, between those favoring the exten- 
sion of slavery and those demanding its extinction. 

Mr. Lincoln was stalwart, angular, and plain, not de- 
void of ambition, but resolutely opposed to the gaining 
of a single foot of American soil for the extension or per- 
petuation of slavery. He attacked the positions of Mr. 
Douglas with clearness and force. He so completely un- 
covered his purposes that he carried his audience captive, 
and his speech was so permeated with intense moral con- 



48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

viction, that he often quivered with emotion in its utter- 
ance. Others addressed the people that day, but to Mr. 
Lincoln was awarded the honor of having pierced the 
armor of his antagonist, and of having won the right to 
carry the standard of freedom into the battle that could 
not be averted. 

The Abolitionists of the state now sought to commit 
him fully to their programme. They felt that in his 
Anti-Nebraska utterances he was with them and ought 
to declare himself fully, but he avoided them. The time 
for him had not yet come. In the fullness of time he 
could be more useful to the cause of union and freedom 
by a conservative record than if he had been open to the 
charge of being a fanatical abolitionist. On the question 
of the Anti-Nebraska Bill he could take strong ground, 
and he followed Mr. Douglas to Peoria to repeat the same 
triumph in debate as at Springfield. 

In 1854, in spite of his unwillingness, he was elected 
to the Illinois Legislature. A senator was to be elected 
at that session in place of General Shields, and Lincoln 
now aspired to that position. There was an Anti-Ne- 
braska majority of two on joint ballot, but some of them 
were pronounced Abolitionists, for whom Mr. Lincoln's 
position was not sufficiently advanced, and five were Dem- 
ocrats, who preferred to vote for a senator with antece- 
dents like their own. To the Abolitionists, Mr. Lincoln 
easily pledged himself to vote for the exclusion of slavery 
in all territories of the United States. Matteson, the Dem- 
ocratic candidate, was almost elected. The Anti-Ne- 
braska Democrats w r ould probably vote for him on the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 49 

next ballot in preference to a Whig like Lincoln. 
In this emergency Mr. Lincoln magnanimously said 
to the Whigs, "You ought to drop me and go for Trum- 
bull. That is the only way you can defeat Matteson. 
The cause in this case is to be preferred to men." 

Mr. Lincoln was reserved for the conspicuous cam- 
paign of 1 858, when he should contest for senatorial hon- 
ors with Mr. Douglas and discuss the great issues of slav- 
ery extension in the hearing of the nation. Meanwhile, 
the bloody conflicts between the freedom loving settlers of 
Kansas, and the border ruffians, took place, and the North 
became aroused over the plan of the pro-slavery men to 
foist pro-slavery constitutions upon the territories that 
should seek admission to the union. For these events, Mr. 
Lincoln held Mr. Douglas responsible,and he likewise held 
fast to the conservative position that the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise was an act of bad faith, and that 
slavery should not be extended into territories heretofore 
free. 

The first national convention of the Republican party 
met in February, 1856, and made its platform on the lines 
of Mr. Lincoln's contention on the subject of slavery. 
His prominence in the eye of the party was evinced by 
the fact that from that convention he received no votes 
for the vice-presidency. His voice was heard during the 
campaign, discussing the great issues of the time. In 
1858, a Democratic state convention met in Illinois, 
which besides nominating a state ticket, indorsed the 
name of Stephen A. Douglas as his own successor in the 
senate. That crafty politician had begun to have doubts 



50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

as to whether the Lecompton constitution was the act 
and deed of the people of Kansas, and sought to recall the 
support of the people of his state, who were estranged from 
him by the violence that had been introduced in Kansas. 
In the effort to restrain the friends of freedom from freely 
voting upon the issues that w T ere really before them, it 
was even suggested that Mr. Douglas was on his way to 
the Republican fold. 

Mr. Lincoln was not deceived by Mr. Douglas's change 
of attitude. There was an election of senator in the next 
year in the state of Illinois, and the two candidates were 
the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and his most con- 
spicuous opponent. If this prize should not slip from 
Mr. Douglas's grasp, he must disavow some of the fruits 
of his labor on behalf of slavery, and thus retain enough 
of his former supporters for his election. It was upon 
his record as a tool of slavery to open the territories to 
that institution, and upon the ground of his inconsistency 
in presenting the doctrine of popular sovereignty, that 
Mr. Lincoln assailed him in his candidacy for the Lmited 
States Senate. 

In April, 1858, a Democratic state convention met in 
Illinois and indorsed Mr. Douglas. He had so befogged 
many leading men of Illinois that they begged the Re- 
publicans to trust him, and put no one in nomination 
against him. Already Mr. Lincoln perceived that Mr. 
Douglas had been crowded into a position that would ul- 
timately destroy his chances of leading a united Demo- 
cratic party in a national election, for in failing to uphold 
the Lecompton convention, and in representing in Illinois 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 51 

that popular sovereignity would demonstrate the ability 
of the territories to protect themselves from slavery, he 
created genuine alarm in the South. Mr. Lincoln's bat- 
tle was nearly won. It did not matter if Mr. Douglas 
should defeat him by his insincere scheming in 1858. A 
greater day of reckoning was coming in i860. 

On the 1 6th of June the Republican convention of Illi- 
nois passed a resol ition unanimously declaring that" Abra- 
ham Lincoln is our first and only choice for United States 
Senator to fill the vacancy about to be created by the ex- 
piration of Mr. Douglas's term of office." On the evening 
of that day he locked his office door and produced the 
manuscript of a speech and read the opening paragraph 
to his partner, Mr. Herndon. When he had finished he 
looked into the astonished face of Mr. Herndon and asked 
him, "How do you like that?" 

It was the speech that was to be delivered before the 
Republican convention, avowing his candidacy for the 
Senate. The paragraph was as follows: 

"Gentlemen of the Convention: If we could first know 
where we are and whither we are tending, we could then 
better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now 
far on into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with 
the avowed object and confident promise, of putting an end 
to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, 
that agitation has not only not ceased but has constantly 
augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis 
has been reached and passed. *A house divided against 
itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot 
endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not 



52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the 
house to fall. But I do expect it will cease to be divid- 
ed. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either 
the opponents of slavery will arrest the farther spread of 
it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or 
its adversaries will push it forward till it shall become 
alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new; North 
as well as South." 

Then followed a masterly review of the aggressive 
steps by which pro-slavery legislators had sought to ex- 
tend the institution, and the part that Mr. Douglas had 
played in it, and his present inconsistent attitude toward 
his party and his insincere overture to the Republican 
party. Then with the clarion peal of an acknowledged, 
trusted, and confident leader, he concluded: 

' 'Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mus- 
tered, over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did 
this under the single impulse of resistance to a common 
danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of 
strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gath- 
ered from the four winds, and formed and fought the bat- 
tle through under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, 
proud and pampered enemy. Did we brave all that to 
fall now? Now, when that same enemy is wavering, dis- 
severed and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We 
shall not fail: If we stand firm we shall not fail. Wise 
counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner 
or later the victory is sure to come." 

Mr. Herndon said, "Is it politic to speak it ^s it w 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 53 

written?" referring to the expression, "A house divided 
against itself cannot stand." 

Mr. Lincoln answered, "I want to use some universally 
known figure, expressed in simple language as universally 
known, that may strike home to the minds of men in or- 
der to rouse them to the peril of the times. I would 
rather be defeated with this expression in the speech, and 
it held up and discussed before the people, than to be vic- 
torious without it." 

Other friends were called in council. They thought 
his utterance impolitic and sure to lead to his defeat. Mr. 
Lincoln heard them patiently. Mr. Herndon was the 
only one who said: 

"Lincoln, deliver it just as it reads, the speech is true, 
wise, politic and will succeed now or in the future." 

Then Mr. Lincoln broke silence and said, "Friends, I 
have thought about the matter a great deal, have weighed 
the question well from all corners, and am thoroughly 
convinced the time has come when it should be uttered, 
and if it must be, that I must go down because of this 
speech, then let me go down linked to truth, die in the 
advocacy of what is right and just. This nation cannot 
live on injustice. 'A house divided against itself cannot 
stand,' I say again and again." 

He spoke these words with deep emotion. For him 
the die was cast. The speech was delivered. 

The Democrats thought he had dug his political grave. 
The conservative Republicans shrugged their shoulders 
They thought it presaged defeat. The radical Republi- 
cans and the Abolitionists recognized in it the platform 



54 " ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

of the coming struggle, and the watchword of victory. 

Then followed the campaign with its joint meetings. 
It was the intellectual combat of Titans. Mighty as- 
semblies gathered all over the state, and the press of the 
nation reproduced the struggle so that the entire country 
witnessed the combat. The whole question of slavery, 
and Mr. Douglas's relation to it, was discussed, in a 
manner perfectly satisfactory to the friends of freedom 
and union. In the course of the campaign, with the 
shrewdness of the great lawyer that he was, Lincoln asked 
Mr. Douglas for a candid answ T er to four questions that he 
might get an answer to one of them. That question was, 
"Can the people of a United States Territory in any law- 
ful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United 
States, exclude slavery from its limits?" 

Mr. Douglas answered, "It matters not what way the 
Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract 
question, whether slavery may or may not go into a ter- 
ritory, under the Constitution. The people have the law- 
ful means to introduce or exclude it as they please, for 
the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour 
anywhere unless it is supported by local police regula- 
tions. Those police regulations can only be established 
by the local legislature, and if the people are opposed to 
slavery they w T ill elect representatives to that body who 
will, by unfriendly legislation, effectually prevent the in- 
troduction of it into their midst." 

The doctrine of "possible unfriendly legislation" 
alarmed and incensed the South. The wedge that had 
been started by Mr. Douglas's Anti- Lecoinpton attitude, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 55 

was driven still deeper by the answer to this question. It 
presaged the sundering of the Democratic party in twain, 
and the triumph of the principles of Mr. Lincoln's Spring- 
field speech. The election that should determine the 
senator-ship took place Nov. 2, 1858. The ticket which 
Mr. Lincoln championed had four thousand more votes 
than the Democratic, but by an old and inequitable ap- 
portionment of the districts of the state, a majority of 
the law-makers chosen were Democrats. Mr. Douglas 
was re-elected. When asked how he felt over the re- 
sult, Mr. Lincoln answered that he felt like the boy that 
stubbed his toe. It hurt too bad to laugh and he was 
too big to cry. But he won a reputation as a debater 
that was a revelation to the nation. He was so strong, 
so fair, so temperate, so manly, in the great conflict, that 
he instantly took front rank among the national leaders 
who were devoted to the union and opposed to the ex- 
tension of slavery. 

On the 25th of February, i860, he was invited to New 
York, and delivered at Cooper Institute, before one of the 
most brilliant of American audiences, his masterly review 
of the political questions of the hour. His utterances were 
all that could be desired. The nation had made his ac- 
quaintance and acknowledged his power and worth. 

On May 9th and 10th, the Republican state convention 
of Illinois met at Decatur. Mr. Lincoln was present as 
a spectator, sitting quietly just within the door of the 
wigwam. Richard J. Oglesby was on the platform. He 
arose and stated: 

"I am informed that a distinguished citizen of Illinois 



56 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



and one whom Illinois will ever delight to honor, is pres- 
ent, and I wish to move that this body invite him to a 
seat on the stand." Here Mr. Oglesby paused, as if to 
tantalize his audience and arouse their curiosity, 

and then he announced 
the magic name of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

Pandemonium reigned 
for a while in that wig- 
wam. Then the motion 
was seconded and carried 
with tumultous shouts and 
Mr. Lincoln was carried 
over the heads of the au- 
dience to his place on the 
platform. Mr. Lincoln 
rose, smiled, bowed and 
blushed,as if overwhelmed 
with the enthusiastic attention of his fellow citizens. 
Later, Mr. Oglesby rose again with a mysterious speech 
upon his lips: 

"There is an old Democrat," said he, "waiting outside, 
who has something he wishes to present to the conven- 
tion." 

"Receive it," they cried. 

The doors of the wigwam opened and in marched old 
John Hanks with two fence rails on his shoulders, bear- 
ing the inscription, "Two rails, from a lot made by Abra- 
ham Lincoln and John Hanks, in the Sangamon bottom, 
in the year 1830." The audience was beside itself. Mr. 




Richard J. Oglesby, 
War Governor of Illinois. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



57 



Lincoln blushed and laughed. They insisted upon a 
speech, and he said: 

"Gentlemen: I suppose you want to know something 
about those things. Well, the truth is John Hanks and 
I did make rails in the Sangamon bottom. I don' t know 




The Wigwam, at Chicago. The Building in which Lincoln was Nominated 
for the Presidency by the Republican Party, May 18, 1860. 



whether we made those rails or not. The fact is I don't 
think they are a credit to the makers. But I do know 
that I made rails then, and think I could make better 
ones than those now." 

That convention closed with a resolution declaring: 
''Abraham Lincoln is the first choice of the Republican 
party of Illinois for the presidency," and instructing the 






58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

delegates to the Chicago convention to use all honorable 
means to secure his nomination and to cast the vote of 
the state as a unit for him. 

Thus was the movement started that should make 
Abraham Lincoln, the flat-boatman, the rail splitter, the 
standard-bearer of the Republican party in the fateful 
election of i860. 

The convention met at Chicago on the 16th of May in 
a great wigwam at the corner of Lake and Market 
Streets. William H. Seward of New York was the rep- 
resentative man of the East for the highest office in the 
gift of the nation, at the hands of the Republican party. 
Favorite sons of other states received complimentary votes 
on the first ballot. 

On the third ballot Mr. Lincoln had distanced all 
competitors and was within i- 1 j votes of the nomina- 
tion. Those votes were quickly given and the nom- 
ination was made unanimous. When the dispatch an- 
nouncing his nomination was handed him, at Spring- 
field, he started home with it, saying: 

"Gentlemen, there is a little short woman at our house 
who is probably more interested in this dispatch than I 
am, and if you will excuse me I will take it up and let 
her see it." 

The formal letters of notification and acceptance were 
passed. The Democrats were divided, as Mr. Lincoln had 
foreseen. His Freeport question had rent them in twain. 
Douglas and Breckenridge were their standard bearers, 
and the result was not difficult to foresee. On the 6th 
of November, the nation recorded its verdict. Abrahnm 




William H. Seward. 
Born 1801. Died 1872. 



60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Lincoln was President-elect of the United States. Be- 
tween November and March there was much to be done. 
His cabinet was to be chosen, numerous offices were to 
be filled, his private affairs were to be wound up. The 
magnanimity of his mind was soon made apparent in his 
willingness to appoint his opponents to the highest 
offices within his gift. 

He offered the Secretaryship of the Treasury to Mr. 
Guthrie of Kentucky; another secretaryship was ten- 
dered to Mr. Gilmer of North Carolina; Stephens of 
Georgia was also approached. He saw, as few party 
men could see, the injustice and impolicy of admin- 
istering the government in the interest of a party that 
had no existence in the southern states. Though 
he was a conqueror, he was a conciliator, and if grave 
trouble was to be safely avoided, he would leave no stone 
unturned to avoid it. 

Without jealousy or fear, he intrusted the foremost 
places in his cabinet to his late political rivals, utterly 
oblivious to the suggestion that they might outshine or 
supplant him. 

Seward, the accomplished, eloquent statesman from 
New York, he made his Secretary of State, Chase 
his Secretary of the Treasury, Bates his Attorney Gen- 
eral. 

Cameron and Smith he appointed in deference to 
the suggestions of his friends, for services rendered, 
as alleged, in securing his nomination. Hundreds of 
office seekers made a pilgrimage to Springfield and 
made life a burden to him. He listened to their 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 61 

plea, regaled them with an apposite story and sent them 
on their way. Many of his old-time friends hoped to reap 
the reward of their friendship in appointment to office, 
and felt hardly toward him that their cases were not al- 
ways favorably considered. But he would not have it 
said that he used his public position in the interest of his 
friends. Then too, old friends and old scenes must be 
visited that he might say good-bye, for his long absence, 
from the region where he had grown to manhood. He 
made a tender farewell visit to his old step-mother, who 
had been a mother indeed. He visited New Salem and 
shook hands with thousands of his old friends, whom he 
had known in all the phases of his career. 

The framing of his policy and the writing of his in- 
augural address were absorbing cares. As he looked out 
on the alarming situation in the South and the imbecility 
and knavery that was being manifested in Washington, 
his forced inactivity till March was like a consuming 
canker. Southern States were seceding and appropriat- 
ing national property. The arsenals of the North were 
being looted for the benefit of the South, by order of the 
Secretary of War. Frantic efforts were being made in 
Congress to concoct some scheme of compromise that 
would save the union, and Mr. Lincoln was implored to, 
speak some word, or offer some suggestion as to his poli- 
cy, that would help the situation. To such as sought to 
know his position, he referred them to his record. 

To the committee of thirty- three in the House he said, 
"Entertain no compromise in regard to the extension of 
slavery." To Mr. Washburnehe said on this point: 



62 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



"Hold firm, as with a chain of steel." 
On Dec. 17th, he wrote to ThurlowWeed that u no state 
can in any way, lawfully, get out of the union without 




President Lincoln and his Cabinet. 



the consent of the others," and, that "it is the duty of the 
president and other government functionaries to run the 
machine as it is." To Mr. Washburne he wro v e, for the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 63 

advice of General Scott, "Please present my respects to 
the General and tell him, confidentially, that I shall be 
obliged to him to be as well prepared as he can to either 
hold, or retake the forts, as the case may require, at and 
after the inauguration." The summary way in which Gen- 
eral Jackson had dealt with the milliners of 1830 and '32 
was a frequent study during these months of waiting. 

At length the time came for his departure to the scene 
of his labors. With his mind fully made up, his cabinet 
chosen, his inaugural written, he bade farewell to his old 
partner, as we have related. Judge Gillespie, an old 
friend, called to say good-bye and told him he believed 
it would do him good to get to Washington. 

"I know it will," Lincoln replied, "I only wish I could 
have got there to lock the door before the horse was stol- 
en. "But when I get to the spot I can find the tracks." 

With tender farewell he addressed the citizens of Spring- 
field, commending them to the Divine care, and begging 
their prayers on his behalf. 

At different stages on the route he stated his position 
with a clearness that admitted no uncertainty, that he 
purposed to rule justly, respecting the rights of all under 
the Constitution, maintaining the rights and possessions 
of the nation in all its parts. 

Assassins lay in wait for him, but he avoided them 
and reached the Capital in safety more than a week be- 
fore the inauguration. On the 27th of February, when 
waited upon by the mayor and common council of Wash- 
ington, he assured them, and the South through them, 
that he had no disposition to treat them in any other way 



64 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



than as neighbors, and that he had no disposition to with- 
hold from them any constitutional rights. They should 
all have their rights under the Constitution, not grudg- 
ingly, but fully and fairly. 

No more fateful or solemn inauguration of a president 
ever took place than that of Abraham Lincoln on the 4th 

of March, 1861. As 
he stood before the 
Capitol, serene, brave, 
true to the noble in- 
stincts of his nature, 
and the promise of 
his life, resolutely set 
on upholding free- 
dom and the Consti- 
tution, there surged 
about him a swarm 
of traitors and con- 
spirators, whose pur- 
poses were but thin- 
ly concealed. Presi- 

James Buchanan. Fifteenth President dent Buchanan was 

Born 1791. Died 1868. ^^ whose irres(> 

luteness had permitted secession to get good headway. 
Chief-Justice Taney and his associates were there, whose 
perverse ingenuity had formulated the Dred Scott De- 
cision. Generals soon to be conspicuous in the ranks of 
the rebel army, surrounded him. Seward, the great rival 
whom he had distanced, stood near. Chase, Scott, Sum- 
ner and Wade. who should hold up his hands in the day of 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 65 

battle were there, and Douglas was holding the president's 
hat, though the ambition of his life had been overthrown 
by the man who was now the "observed of all observers." 
He w r as solicitous for the safety and convenience of the 
new president and defiant to the enemies of the union. 

The great inaugural was but the fuller statement of the 
views to which he had given expression in the period 
since his election. It was conciliatory, but clear and firm. 
He said, "I have no purpose directly, or indirectly, to in- 
terfere with the institution of slavery in the states where 
it now exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, 
and I have no inclination to do so." "I hold that in 
contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution 
the union of the states is perpetual. I shall take care, 
as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, 
that the laws of the union be faithfully executed in all 
the states. In doing this there need be no blood-shed 
or violence and there shall be none unless it is forced 
upon the national authority." 

He pointed out the way of curing dissatisfaction with 
the form of government, by amending it, or by their rev- 
olutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. Then he 
counseled patience in the consideraton of sources of dis- 
satisfaction, declaring that intelligent patriotism and 
Christianity and a firm reliance on Him who has never 
yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to ad- 
just, in the best way, all our present difficulties. Then, 
as if clothed with the full dignity of his magisterial of- 
fice, he pronounced these solemn and beautiful sentences, 
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and 



66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

not in mine, are the momentous issues of civil war. The 
government will not assail you. You can have no con- 
flict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have 
no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, 
while I have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, 
and defend it. I am loath to close. We are not enemies 
but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained, it will not break our bonds of affect- 
ion. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from 
every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart 
and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell 
the chorus of the union, when again touched, as surely 
they will be, by the better angels of our nature.'' But 
these gentle words were lost upon the men who had al- 
ready committed themselves to the disruption of the 
union and the founding of a Confederacy, of which the 
institution of slavery should be the chief corner stone. 

On the evening of the 4th of March, Mr. Lincoln en- 
tered the White House, that should be his home for the 
remainder of his days. There, was sumptuousness and 
elegance to which he was not accustomed, formality and 
etiquette, that in his quiet life he had not practiced, but 
to all he adjusted himself with that simple grace that 
marked the American citizen, born to the purple and des- 
tined to command. 

He found the government in confusion, seven states in 
secession and a rebel government already organized at 
Montgomery, Alabama. The Southern heart had been 
fired and her young men were in arms. 

He nominated his cabinet and set himself earnestly 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 67 

at work upon the tasks that were forced upon him. 
Though his counselors were able men, famed for leader- 
ship, they were only his advisers. He was their chief, 
President of the Nation and Commander-in-Chief of the 




The Bombardment of Ft. Sumter, April 12. 1861. 

army and navy of the United States. If any of them 
supposed that he would divide that responsibility or yield 
to their dictation they were soon, kindly but firmly, dis- 
abused. Some of the Southern leaders thought that 
there would be no war, that the North was divided and 
that the Northern people would not fight. There was 



68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

some encouragement to this idea, but not in the calm, 
resolute purpose of the new President. 

On the 15th of April, the President issued his first call 
for seventy-five thousand volunteers to put down the re- 
bellion. Ft. Sumter had been attacked and had fallen. 
One by one the rebel leaders had slunk away from the 
scene of their treason, Breckinridge among the last. The 
war was forced upon him. Patriotic devotion to the 
Union effaced all differences. Half a million of men 
responded to the President's call. Congress voted men 
and money for the prosecution of the war. The times 
were inauspicious. The best generals of the country were 
in the rebel service. Arms, ammunition, and accoutre- 
ments, had been seized, and foreign sympathies, and hos- 
tile diplomacy, raised grave problems for the new exec- 
utive; but he faltered not. Disasters came, incompetent 
commanders and inadequate preparations demonstrated 
that war would be discouraging and tedious. Still, he 
did not falter. He succeeded in holding Maryland, Ken- 
tucky and Missouri in the union, and in dividing Virgin- 
ia and holding West Virginia loyal. 

When Congress met in Dec, 1861, in his message on 
the slavery question, he said, "I have adhered to the act 
of Congress freeing persons held to service used for in- 
surrectionary purposes." In relation to the emancipa- 
tion and arming of the negroes he said, "The maintenance 
of the integrity of the union is the primary object of the 
contest. The union must be preserved and all indispen- 
sable means must be employed. We should not be in 
haste to determine that radical and extreme measures, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



69 



which may reach the loyal as well as the disloyal, are 
indispensable." The possibility of injustice to the bor- 
der states led him to counsel patience. 

During this session of Congress, slavery was forbidden 
in the territories 
of the United 
States,and Mr. Lin- 
coln labored with 
the representatives 
of the border states 
to accept the idea 
of gradual com- 
pensated emanci- 
pation, which they 
declined. In his 
second message, he 
urged the propo- 
sition upon con- 
gress of gradual 
and compensated 
emancipation. I 
cannot forbear 
quoting some of 
his words. In concluding his appeal he said: 

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the 
stormy present. The occasion is piled high with diffi- 
culty. We must rise with the occasion. As our case is 
new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must 
disenthral ourselves, and then we shall save ourcountn. 
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history! We of this 




Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War. 
Born 1814. Died 1869. 



7 o ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

congress and this administration, will be remembered in 
spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignifi- 
cance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial 
through which we pass will light us down in honor or 
dishonor to the last generation. We say we are for the 
Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We 
know how to save the Union. The world knows we do 
know how to save it. We, even we, here hold the power 
and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave 
we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what 
we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or 
meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means 
may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, 
peaceful, generous, just— a way which if followed, the 
world will forever applaud and God must forever bless." 
His plan, so earnestly and eloquently presented, re- 
sulted in no action. The matter pressed upon his mind 
until, on his own responsibility, he issued his proclama- 
tion of warning, his own magisterial act, on Sept. 22, 
1862, advising the states in rebellion that if they did not 
return to loyalty by January, 1863, he would issue a 
proclamation emancipating their slaves. January came, 
and with it the most momentous document in the history 
of the country, wherein the names of the states in rebel- 
lion were cited; and then, by virtue of his power as Pres- 
ident of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the 
Army and Navy, he ordered and declared that "all per- 
sons held as slaves within said designated states and parts 
of states, are and henceforward shall be, free," and that 
u the Executive Government of the United States, includ- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 71 

ing the military and naval authorities thereof, will recog- 
nize and maintain the freedom of said persons." 

Upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of jus- 
tice warranted by the constitution, upon military neces- 
sity, he invoked, "the considerate judgment of mankind 
and the gracious favor of Almighty God." 

It was the crowning act of his career. The moment 
of destiny had. come and found him ready. The promise 
of his young manhood, made amid the slave scenes of 
New Orleans, "If I ever get a chance to hit Slavery I'll 
hit it hard," was fulfilled. Henceforth, he is Lincoln 
the Emancipator! 

Supplementary legislation gave full effect to the pur- 
pose of this great document, reaching to the slaves in bor- 
der states and in sections under the control of the Union. 
The tide of battle turned in favor of the Union, and ere 
the close of his term the purposes for which he had gone 
from Springfield to Washington were well-nigh accom- 
plished. Through it all, he was the masterful leader, 
bearing his own burden; resting his often breaking heart 
and burdened mind with the wit and humor that had al- 
ways been so restful to him; bearing with patience the 
mistakes and jealousies and malice of men; never falter- 
ing in his steady course; wisely avoiding entanglement 
with foreign nations till our crisis should be passed; prac- 
ticing humanity and kindness that sterner men thought 
subversive of discipline; approachable to all who had an 
errand, or who needed to invoke the great, strong, kind- 
hearted President. He came down to the close of his 
first term of office to be triumphantly re-elected, and to 



72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

inaugurate the work of reconstruction, for he who saved 
the Union was, in the judgment of the people, the one 
who might most effectually restore it to its old form, free 

from the curse 
of slavery, to 
the condition of 
a great homo- 
geneous com- 
mon-wealth, the 
home of happi- 
ness and thrift 
and freedom. 
He began his 
work with his 
old kind, con- 
ciliatory, yet 
self-confident, 
tact, and just as 
he had begun, 
the bullet of an 
assassin remov- 
ed him from la- 
bor to reward. 
That assassina- 
tion conferred on him the crown of martyrdom. If he 
had survived, he might have been Moses and Joshua in 
one. It was enough that he was Moses. 

Let us close with the words of Owen Lovejoy, spoken 
when emancipation resolutions were under consideration 
and Mr. Crittenden had said"I have a niche for Abraham 




Ford's Theatre, Washington where Lincoln was shot 
by John Wilkes Booth, April 14, 1865. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 73 

Lincoln." Mr. Lovejoy exclaimed, "I, too, have a niche 
for Abraham Lincoln, but it is in Freedom's holy fame and 
not in the blood besmeared temple of human bondage; not 
surrounded by slaves, fetters and chains, but with the 
symbols of freedom; not dark with bondage but radiant 
with the light of liberty. In that niche he shall stand 
proudly, nobly, gloriously, with shattered fetters and 
broken chains and slave whips at his feet. 

( 'If Abraham Lincoln pursues the path evidently point- 
ed out for him in the Providence of God, as I believe 
he will, then he will occupy the proud position I have 
indicated. That is a fame worth living for, aye, more, 
that is a fame worth dying for, though that death led 
through the blood of Gethsemane and the agony of the 
accursed tree. That is a fame which has glory, honor 
and immortality and eternal life. 

"Let Abraham Lincoln make himself, as I trust he 
will, the Emancipator, the Liberator, as he has the 
opportunity of doing, and his name shall be not only en- 
rolled in this earthly temple, but it will be traced on the 
living stones of the temple which rears its head amid the 
thrones and hierarchies of heaven, whose top stone is to 
be brought in with shouting of 'Grace unto it.'" 

Mr. Lovejoy's confidence was not in vain, 



LINCOLN, "THE EMANCIPATOR." 

(18C9-1865) 

By G. Mercer Adam.* 

IF there ever was a life consecrated from early manhood 
to humanity's cause, it was that of Lincoln, "the Eman- 
cipator," the revered martyred President who fell in Free- 
dom's name. His death, sad and lamented as it was and is, 
was, however, a glorious and triumphal one, for it did 
almost as much for Freedom, and, no matter of what color 
the people were, for individual rights and popular liberty 
in this great nation, as was done by the holocaust of human 
life that fell in their cause, and by the colossal sums ex- 
pended throughout a most critical and appalling era. His 
demise and the manner of it, after so strenuous, honest, and 
conscientious a life, influenced, if it did not actually mould, 
the immediate future of the nation, and gave reconstruction 
such a set and direction as it might hardly otherwise have 
had, while potently reuniting and cementing the riven Union. 
One far-seeing and most humane event in Lincoln's admin- 
istration, while he lived, was instrumental not only in adding 
glory to his name, but in bringing about the close of the 
great conflict of his time. We refer, of course, to the edict 
of Emancipation and the prohibiting of slavery in the States 
and Territories of the Union. Emancipation, it is true, 






* Historian, Biographer, and Essay ist. Author of a "Precis of English History," 
a "Continuation of Grecian History," etc., and for many years Editor of Self- 
Culture Magazine.— The Publishers. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 7 5 

was resorted to as "a war measure" in the thick of the 
deadly contest; but with Lincoln, long before the era of 
the decree and the amendment to the Constitution which 
abolished slavery forever from the country, the vile traf- 
fic had always been held in abhorrence, and deep in his 
mind had lain the thought of abolishing it or seeing it abol- 
ished. The immediate effect of the measure, we know, was 
to drive the South to the verge of desperation ; while at the 
North it was only partially accepted and for a time it 
aroused even bitter animadversion. Happily, however, a 
change of sentiment came ere long, when it was seen what 
freedom meant to the slave, and how telling were the con- 
sequences of emancipation in the issues of the war. The 
act, almost entirely, was Lincoln's own, and its consumma- 
tion did surpassing honor to him, as well as to his adminis- 
tration, and, at large, to the people who endorsed and ap- 
plauded it. 

There is little need here to rehearse the well-known in- 
cidents in Lincoln's modest trading venture down the Mis- 
sissippi, which led the great and humane President early in 
his career to become an abolitionist, though he was never 
a negrophilist. To a heart so tender as his and so open to 
the dictates of justice and the rights of all, the sights he wit- 
nessed in that expedition in the flatboat on the great river of 
manacled and whipped slaves, were sufficient to turn his 
mind and heart against slavery and to avow, as he expressed 
it, that some day he would "hit it hard," while he knew and 
affirmed that it could never be compromised with. His con- 
servatism and moderation, together with his respect for law, 
at the outset of his career made him, not tolerant towards 



7^ ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the evil institution, nor timid in his attitude towards it, but 
careful to keep it within bounds and prevent its extension 
where it was not law. This it is that has led some writers to 
deny that Lincoln was opposed to slavery as a crime and a 
moral wrong, and to affirm that he assumed hostility to it 
only as a political manoeuvre, especially after his memorable 
contest with Stephen A. Douglas. This, we think, unfair 
and ungenerous toward the great Emancipator, since few 
men in public life have more remarkably shown, as Lin- 
coln throughout his career showed, a sense of moral right 
and a mind and heart influenced by humane motives, and 
prone to kindliness himself and by precept and example 
urged its sway and interaction upon others. In some meas- 
ure, then, critics are right, and are justified by Lincoln's own 
written and spoken words in regard to slavery. But while 
it is true that Lincoln's hand was for a time stayed by the 
limits of the Constitution, and by his early powerlessness to 
root the giant evil out, and while Emancipation was resorted 
to as a means of saving the Union by an astute war meas- 
ure, it is nevertheless also true that its author was, and had 
long been, opposed in his heart of hearts to the curse of 
slavery, believed it to be founded upon injustice and bad 
policy, and though he would not force abolition upon any 
State against the popular will and voice, he yet hated it 
thoroughly and looked with pain and abhorrence upon its 
existence in any and all sections of the L^nion. 

It may also assuredly be said that Lincoln looked forward 
with confidence to the ultimate extinction of slavery, though 
it took, as it did, a great crisis in the history of the Nation 
to get rid of it. His own belief in this respect is enshrined 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. J J 

not only in the momentous edict that forever banned it from 
the Republic, in his opposition to the Dred Scott decision, on 
the ground that it deprived the black man of the rights and 
privileges of citizenship, but in those prophetic words of his 
which he uttered at the Springfield convention, in 1S58, that 
nominated him for the United States Senate. In that cry 
for unity and singlemindedness in the Nation he affirmed his 
belief that the Government of the country ''cannot endure 
permanently half-slave and half-free," for, as he added, "a 
house divided against itself cannot stand." Once more, 
in 1864, he said in memorable words, "if slavery is not 
wrong, nothing is wrong" — a dictum of unmistakable truth 
and force ; — while he knew that the war then going on be- 
tween the North and South was a struggle on the part of 
the latter, not only for the right of secession, but to per- 
petuate slavery, the one factor that had divided the country 
into two hostile and irreconcilable camps, and was, materially 
and socially, the distinctive barrier between them. With the 
prescience that marked his statesmanship, he saw this fact 
so clearly that the Proclamation of Emancipation was the 
result — a measure that almost everywhere was hailed by the 
plaudits of mankind ; while, in the wording of the Act itself 
and in Lincoln's own defence of it, we see the great Liber- 
ator's realization of the profound moral agitation of the era 
and the significance of the remedy he would apply in bring- 
ing about the abiding issue of the conflict. 

We have dealt with Mr. Lincoln's moral convictions in re- 
gard to slavery, and of the righteousness of the measure he 
resorted to in planning and launching, at the right juncture 
in a critical time, the great Act of Emancipation. Of the 



79 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

President's other conspicuous virtues and characteristics 
much also might be said, and that not merely in the way of 
commendation, but as the memorial of an eminent and high- 
ly revered life of perpetual and priceless value as an example 
to the Nation. One of the notable qualities in the man, 
which has been the theme of not a little controversy, is that 
of his own personal religious life. The question has re- 
peatedly been asked : "What was his religious belief, if he 
had any," for some venture, and wrongly and unjustly, we 
believe, to class him as an unbeliever and agnostic. Of 
Mr. Lincoln's religious life we do not know much, since he 
never revealed his whole inner self to anyone. In early life 
he was doubtless indifferent to religion ; but when he came 
to high position he appeared to treat office as a trust, and 
again and again acted as if he were plastic in the hands 
of a Divine Being. His unblemished life, and thoughtful, 
humane career, and the consecration of himself to the Na- 
tion's need, show that he lived his life under a deep sense of 
responsibility to a Higher Power. 

At Salem, Illinois, he seems early to have come in con- 
tact with a rather reckless set of men, of the rough Western 
type, who among their other crudenesses indulged in scof- 
fings at things sacred. With these men, Lincoln, in his 
promiscuous comradeship, had associations, and it is prob- 
able that at this time he joined them in their heedless flings 
at Christian truth, and especially at the sects and their jar- 
ring discords. But if he took part in their levities, and 
even aired some of the cheap witicisims directed against 
religion by Volney and Tom Paine, of whose sceptical writ- 
ings he had been a reader, it was at an immature stage of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 79 

his intellectual and moral life, and before he was impressed 
with the realities of human existence, and with the providen- 
tial dealings of that Heavenly Power which he was after- 
wards profoundly to acknowledge and pay reverence to. 
Later on, we see the true, frank, outspoken but reverent 
man, who was the embodiment of kindness and "as tender 
as a woman" — the man who got near to the people, for 
whom he had a great, large-hearted, human love. To such 
he often spoke affectionately and most truly his mind, as 
on the occasion of his leaving Springfield, 111., to assume at 
the capital the arduous duties of the Presidency. At the 
station, before his departure, he addressed a large assem- 
blage of his fellow citizens and old acquaintances who had 
come to bid him good-bye. "Friends," he said to them, 
"one who has never been placed in a like position can little 
understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sad- 
ness I feel at this parting. I go to assume a task more 
difficult than that which devolved upon Washington. Un- 
less the great God who assisted him shall be with and aid 
me, I must fail ; but if the same omniscient mind and al- 
mighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and 
support me, I shall not fail, I shall succeed." This is the 
true Lincoln, and in the above words there is the mighty 
source owned by him of his dependence and need. A like 
religious attitude he also manifested throughout his admin- 
istrations ; and during the great era of strife, when victory 
was vouchsafed to the North by the God of battles, often 
to that omnipotent Being did he publicly, and among inti- 
mates and associates, give devout and grateful thanks. 
Another and kindred trait in the man was his tender, 



80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

loving nature and the warmth of his sympathies for those 
who were in trouble, and especially towards the common 
people, whom, as he once said, God must assuredly like, 
e!se, as he characteristically put it, "He wouldn't have made 
so many of them." Very charming was the interesting, 
figurative manner in which he would at times address them ; 
while in his daily intercourse he ever showed his kindly in- 
terest in their welfare, and, without effort or evident design, 
would endear himself to them and readily win his way to 
their hearts. His homely ways and quaint humor — at times 
also even his caustic wit — were qualities that further com- 
mended him to the affections of his own rough people and 
brought him fame among those, far and wide, among whom 
he spent his early and maturing years. Nor among these 
honest, simple folk were his studious habits, meditative 
moods, and even his occasional plaintive sadness, missed by 
them, as many stories regarding him attest, such as are told 
by those especially who knew him intimately, who worked 
by his side, traded or did business with him in his early 
homes, or who spent the long winter evenings with him by 
his or their own kindly though rude firesides. Amid such 
associations and in such varied relations, Lincoln was al- 
ways the same modest, unassuming man, the same genial, 
kindly and sympathetic friend. Even after good-fortune 
and a change of circumstances came to him, aided by his 
own natural and acquired gifts, he never altered in this re- 
spect ; nor did he ever suffer himself to be beyond the reach, 
and if need be the aid, of an old acquaintance or of an 
erstwhile known and rarely-forgotten face. Humble and 
obscure as was his origin, and rough and uncouth ?s was 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. °I 

the environment of his early days, only the possession of a 
manly, humanized mind, in close touch with its fellow-mind, 
and of a soul far removed from the ignobleness and mater- 
ializing influences of high position, could have kept Lin- 
coln the same kindly, approachable man he ever was and 
remained to his lamentable, tragic end. 

We have incidentally referred to Lincoln's studious habits 
and meditative moods, and important were the results to 
him of his early predilection for books and the acquisition 
of knowledge through his unappeasable thirst for reading. 
The stimulus in the direction of mental acquisitions appears 
to have been early given him by his kind and intelligent 
stepmother ; though his own ambition and longing for knowl- 
edge were, obviously, an inheritance of birth, afterwards 
strongly developed by innate propensity and an eager desire 
for information, so far as such could be gratified through 
the facilities and materials within his reach. Meagre, as we 
know, were these facilities, as were those which he could 
command through the fitful periods of desultory schooling. 
The books in early youth at his service were, moreover, 
few, including little besides the Bible and a spelling book ; 
for an English grammar, it is said, he tramped six miles to 
a neighbor's house to borrow and study it. Later on, he 
seems to have become possessed, or obtained the loan of, 
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," the Life of Henry Clay, 
and Weems's biography of Washington. These he eagerly 
devoured. On the first of them he appears to have formed 
the rudiments of an eminently good literary style, after- 
wards assiduously improved by further reading, as well as 
by his own excellent judgment and good taste. On the 



82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

biographies, he gratified his desire for some practical ac- 
quaintance with the political history of his country, other 
than could be picked up among his neighbors and fellow- 
settlers, and from such politicians of local fame as he came 
across. All told, this material was not much with which 
to equip the future debater and statesman ; but it was more 
to Lincoln than to a man of less inquiring mind and with 
little of his powers of assimilation and reflection. Not much 
more liberal was his training in law, though he assiduously 
read the statutes of his State and some text-books and 
other tomes of legal lore ; while, when he had need to search 
for materials for any case he had to get up, he delved into 
and primed himself with the decisions of the local courts. 
In these and such like exploitations into the dry literature 
of the law, he was greatly assisted by a retentive memory 
and a remarkable power of getting into the heart of a sub- 
ject and of clearly and cogently presenting it with all the 
illuminating skill of a sound understanding. 

When he had gained some local notoriety and was 
known as "a character" in the towns of the West, he began 
to take active part in the politics of the time, and occasion- 
ally to mount the orator's stump. In this delectation he 
more frequently indulged, especially after he had gained 
confidence in his powers, and had partly slaked his appe- 
tite for mental food. At this time he even began to com- 
pose a little, one of his early attempts, it is related, being 
an essay, prompted by his humane feelings, in which he 
Enounced cruelty to animals. What facility he manifested 
&ter in his career, in both his written and his spoken utter- 
ances, it is not a little curious to trace back to that early 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 83 

-composition deploring- the cruelty of youth, in the wanton 
snaring- of birds, and on catching terrapins and putting live 
coals on their backs. But it was as a stump speaker that 
he more particularly shone, and on his appearance in that 
capacity he never lacked an audience, who enjoyed to the 
full the jokes and abounding humor of his harangues, and 
when in his more earnest moods, the heartfelt power and 
effectiveness of his serious address. The success he met 
with as a public speaker was, as we have hinted, not a little 
owing to his characteristic facetiousness, and, above all, to 
the fund of stories he was possessed of and could recall and 
use with remarkable appropriateness to the occasion, while 
giving added point to his argument. As his political educa- 
tion developed, Lincoln's fame as a speaker grew apace, es- 
pecially after his contest with Douglas over the Senator- 
ship, a contest that showed in a remarkable manner what 
his powers were as a debater in the field of national as well 
as of local politics, and how effectively he mastered the con- 
stitutional and other questions of the time that enabled him 
to floor his adversary. Other gifts and qualities as a 
debater brought him success, particularly those that extort 
admiration from an intelligent, dispassionate audience, 
namely, restraint in the speaker, that puts a check upon un- 
fair as well as inconclusive argument, and the absence of 
temper and of anything bitter or personal in the style and 
manner of his address. In these respects, the future Presi- 
dent was invariably honest with himself, as well as with 
his opponent and his hearers, and never allowed himself 
10 utter an unbecoming taunt or fling at those opposed to 
him. even in the most heated of party controversies. Such 



84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

were the traits in the man who, when great issues were 
beginning to loom on the political horizon, was to take a 
commanding position in their discussion and direction ; and 
who brought with him the potent influences of a clean, high 
heart, and a record for all that was worthy and honorable 
in one aspiring to usefulness and patriotic duty in public 
life. 

In treating, as ere long he was called upon to do, with 
the great issues of his time, another quality is discernable in 
Lincoln's public utterances that marks him out as one who 
will long live in the nation's heart. We refer to the lofty 
sentiments and the profound religious tone of his addresses 
and State papers. The tragic events of the era of the Civil 
War, an era of calamities and long-enduring strife, with its 
appalling shedding of blood which he deeply felt and de- 
plored, naturally gave occasion for the manifestation of 
emotion and for the heart-wringings he time after time 
experienced, as news reached the capital of some great bat- 
tle whose issues were either adverse or favorable to the 
Union cause. In reflecting upon these tragedies of the bat- 
tle-field, and especially in commenting upon them on some 
public occasion, as in the Gettysburg address or in his sec- 
ond Inaugural, Lincoln showed the moral grandeur of his 
nature and the deep heart of pity and reverence that was in 
him, by utterances of inspiring elevation that came home to 
and touched to the quick all sympathetic hearts. For dignity 
and simple beauty, as well as for the fervent patriotism which 
inspired them, these addresses are unique in the annals of 
eloquence, and as such are surely destined to immortality. 
About them there is little of conscious artifice; while they 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 85 

are marked by compactness of statement, logicalness of 
thought, and lucidity of expression, as well as by a nervous 
force which reveals the sincere conviction of the speaker, 
and, despite his wonted humor, the earnestness and serious 
caste of his mind. "To these qualities in Lincoln," ob- 
serves a writer, "was added the great gift of poetry. He 
spoke in figures, and they were tropes that, while they might 
(at times) shock the polite, never failed to illustrate and 
ornament what he was saying to the humble.'' 

Like the poet, Robert Burns, of whose writings he was a 
delighted reader and memorizer, Lincoln, as we have pointed 
out, was of and near to the people. He loved the humble 
bard's songs, and like him, too, he loved Mother Earth, and 
had that gentleness of nature, sympathy for, and tender- 
ness toward his fellowman which distinguished the Scot- 
tish poet. "It was this deep heart of pity and love in him," 
writes Hamilton W. Mabie, "which carried him far beyond 
the reaches of statesmanship or oratory, and give his words 
the finality of expression which marks the noblest art." 
Of his poetic temperament, the same critic (Mr. Mabie) 
thoughtfully remarks. "That there was a deep vein of 
poetry in Mr. Lincoln is clear to one who reads the story of 
his early life; and this innate idealism, set in surround- 
ings so harsh and rude, had something to do with his mel- 
ancholy. The sadness which was mixed with his whole life, 
was, however, largely due to his temperament ; in which 
the final tragedy seemed always to be predicted. In that 
temperament, too, is hidden the secret of the rare quality 
of nature and mind which suffused his public speech and 
turned so much of it into literature. There was humor 



86 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



in it, there was deep human sympathy, there was clear 
mastery of words for the use to which he put them; but 
there was something deeper and more persuasive, — there 
was the quality of his temperament; and temperament is a 
large part of genius. The inner forces of his nature play- 
ed through his thought ; and when great occasions touched 
him to the quick, his whole nature shaped his speech and 
gave it clear intelligence, deep feeling, and that beauty 
which is distilled out of the depths of the sorrows and 
hopes of the world." 

Another interesting feature in the early career of Lincoln 
was his resort to law as a profession. His training for 
this was a little less haphazard than his fitful school edu- 
cation ; though what he picked up in the way of legal lore 
was, as we are told, as much "by sight, scent, and hearing." 
He attended the Courts, read the Indiana Revised Statutes, 
heard law speeches, and listened to law trials. In time he 
became a popular Western advocate and a scrupulously 
honest one, never upholding any case that was not mor- 
ally right or in which he was likely to fail in court, so 
acute and deeply engrained were his honorable instincts 
and sense of justice. Where he had doubts of his client's 
truthfulness and honesty, he would abandon his case rather 
than take up his defense or argue in court what he knew or 
suspected to be a false and unjust position. 

Alike honorable was his attitude toward his fellowman, 
and especially with his relations with women. ''There 
is one part of Lincoln's early life," writes Professor Gold- 
win Smith, "which, though scandal may batten on it, we 
shall pass over lightly; we mean that part which relates to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 87 

his love affairs and his marriage. Criticism, and even bi- 
ography, should respect as far as possible the sanctuary of 
affection. That a man has dedicated his life to the service 
of the public is no reason why the public should be licensed 
to amuse itself by playing with his heart-strings. Not only 
as a storekeeper, but in every capacity, Mr. Lincoln was 
far more happy in his relations with men than women. He, 
however, loved, and loved deeply, Ann Rutledge, who 
appears to have been entirely worthy of his attachment, 
and whose death at the moment when she would have felt 
herself at liberty to marry him threw him into a transport 
of grief, which threatened his reason and excited the grav- 
est apprehensions of his friends. In stormy weather especi- 
ally, he would rave piteously, crying that 'he could never 
be reconciled to have the snow, rain, and storms to beat 
upon her grave.' This first love he seems never to have for- 
gotten. He next had an affair, not so creditable to him. 
Finally, he made a match of which the world, perhaps, has 
heard enough, though the Western lad was too true a gen- 
tleman to let it hear anything about the matter from his 
lips. It is enough to say that this man was not wanting 
in that not inconsiderable element of worth, even the worth 
of statesmen, strong and pure affection." 

His marriage, in 1842, with Mary Todd of Lexington, 
Ky., was, as all know, not a happy one. partly owing, it may 
be, to her higher social position and superior education, 
but more by reason of incompatability of temper. But of 
this not a word is known to have escaped Lincoln in the 
way of complaint or accusation, since his honor evidently 
shrank from such disclosures. What he did, on the con- 



88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

trary, was to devote himself with more assiduity and pa- 
tience to his profession, in the practice of which, as we have 
affirmed, he was never mercenary or suffered the least taint 
of dishonor or wrongdoing. 

Though returned temporarily a member of Congress in 
1847, it was not unt ^ x ^54 tnat ms poetical career activeiy 
began, a few years after the outbreak of the national agita- 
tion against slavery and the enforcement of the Fugitive 
Slave Law. At this time, Lincoln's chief political oppon- 
ent was Stephen A. Douglas, who, aspiring to the Presi- 
dency, was courting the favor of the South by bringing 
forward his Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which practically was 
a repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1850 opening the 
territory to the extension of slavery and adding to the politi- 
cal preponderance of the Slave States. It was at this junc- 
ture, when "the irrepressible conflict" began, that Lincoln 
came actively and interestedly on the scene and set himself 
to wrestle with the evil institution as an outspoken aboli- 
tionist. Soon now (1858) occurred the famous debates 
in Illinois between Lincoln and Douglas, in which the 
former delivered himself of the effective rhetorical figure 
of "the house divided against itself," which gave point to 
the controversy now on between freedom and slavery, and 
in that keynote brought himself to the fore as a candidate 
for the United States Senate, with an evident eye the while 
to the office of the President. Though Douglas was suc- 
cessful in the contest for the lesser post, Lincoln, by the 
masterly part he took in the debates with "the little giant," 
commended himself to the West as a candidate for the chief 
office in the nation, and in the East spread his fame among 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 89 

the electorate at large, especially after his able political ad- 
dress at the Cooper Institute, New York, in February, i860, 
followed by other telling speeches in New England. The 
result came later in the year, with dissensions and a split 
in the Democratic party and the nailing of antislavery col- 
ors on the Republican banners, aided by the furore in the 
entire North over threatened secession and the coming 
precipitation of a conflict betwen the two radically opposed 
sections of the Union. In November the Republican party 
won by a large plurality in the North, in the contest at 
Chicago, and Lincoln was elected to the Presidency. In 
the following March (1861), the inauguration at Wash- 
ington took place, and the humble frontier "rail-splitter" 
assumed the reins of the Federal government, determined, 
God-willing, to maintain the integrity of the Nation and 
uphold its undivided authority. 

The election and installation of President Lincoln as suc- 
cessor in office to the then chief magistrate, Buchanan, pre- 
cipitated, as all know, the calamitous Civil War, and, by 
the irony of Fate, settled not only the distracting contro- 
versy in regard to State Rights, but ultimately the great 
human question of the freedom of the slave. In the pre- 
ceding month of December, South Carolina had declared 
for secession and dissolved her connection with the Union, 
in which momentous act she was joined before March, 
1861, by six other States (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi. 
Florida, Louisiana, and Texas) ; while their people seized 
the Federal forts, arsenals, custom-houses, post-offices, and 
other national property within these States and practically 
defied its constitutional guardians. Placing themselves thus 



9° ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

outside the Union, they presently elected Jefferson Davis 
president of what was styled the Southern Confederacy, 
and in April (a month after Lincoln's inauguration) took up 
the weapons of war and with them bombarded and cap- 
tured Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor. This aggres- 
sion by the Confederacy while for the moment it appalled 
the North, inflamed its people to almost the point of frenzy. 
The retort to the Southern challenge to battle was the in- 
stant call by President Lincoln, as commander-in-chief, for 
75,000 men of the Union militia — a summons that was 
promptly and enthusiastically responded to. In the procla- 
mation calling for additional troops, Lincoln,, while demand- 
ing the seceding States in arms to disperse and retire peace- 
ably to their homes within twenty days, at the same time 
appealed "to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid 
this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and exist- 
ence of our national Union, and the perpetuity of popu- 
lar government, and to redress wrongs already long enough 
endured." 

There was one political advantage which the Lincoln 
administration gained by Secession, namely, that it with- 
drew the preponderating influence of the Southern Demo- 
cratic representatives from the House of Representatives 
and the Senate ; while in a large measure it fused in these 
institutions the two opposing sections of the Northern Re- 
publicans and united them in support of the government 
and the War. At first, the latter did not at once come to- 
gether in their design to coerce the South ; indeed, many- 
leading men in the North were, for a while, if not apathetic, 
dazed by the grave situation and peril of the country ; 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 9 1 

though they ere long reasserted their patriotism and rallied 
to the aid of the Nation and its administration. The latter, 
moreover, was by this time -organized, and Mr. Lincoln 
had succeeded in forming a strong and able Cabinet ; and 
this had its influence on the country in enabling it to tackle 
the great task before it, however little at first it was able to 
accomplish by its arms in the field. For long, indeed, i l . 
was a time of sore trial to the North, and a bitter humili- 
ation that so little was effected by its troops in coping with 
the enemy. The disaster and rout of Bull Run (July 21st) 
early revealed the extent of the demoralization of the Union 
forces at the outset and its inadequacy as the fighting re- 
liance of the Nation. Even when a year had passed, though 
the army had been recruited to over 200,000 men, there were 
no decisive results ; while still darker days were to follow, 
and much inefficency and perplexity to come, ere any ap- 
preciable gain cheered the North and lifted a corner of the 
curtain of gloom. Nor did matters brighten for long, what 
with failures and other experiments in the chief command 
of the army ; the depreciation ot the Federal currency ; 
and with the adverse attitude of foreign powers (chiefly 
Great Britain and France) in according belligerent rights 
to the South, and having to surrender the Commissioners 
of the latter to England, after a Northern blockader had 
taken them from a British mail steamer on the high seas. 
Nor did the outlook improve even with the change of 
generals in command of the army of the Potomac after Mc- 
Dowell's disastrous defeat at Bull Run. These changes 
were successively from McClellan to Pope, and after the 
former had been reinstated to his subsequent replacement 



9 2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

by Burnside, who at length gave place to Hooker, and 
Hooker in turn gave place to Meade — all of them inferior 
to, or at least less successful, than the great Southern 
captains in the war, such as Lee, Longstreet, Johnslon, 
Beauregard, and Stonewall Jackson. These changes and 
other dispositions in the chief command of the Northern 
forces manifestly were a great concern and source of anx- 
iety to Lincoln, who, at this era and throughout the war, 
assumed the burden and responsibility of them, as well 
as of the other heavy cares and solicitudes in the conduct of 
affairs through the trying times and perplexities of the era. 
Only a resolute, patriotic purpose and an undaunted, in- 
vincible spirit, could have sustained him in these exacting, 
onerous duties amid the many discouragements and sadden- 
ing military reverses that marked his four years of rule, 
to the collapse of the rebellion and the era of his martyrdom. 
Nor was this all that we owe the mighty chieftain of the era 
— great as his burden of exacting work and care was — in 
these years of anxiety and prolonged civil strife ; for we 
now reach the period when Lincoln's lofty soul yearned, 
and his sense of patriotic, statesmanlike duty compelled 
him, to launch that immortal edict of his which was to 
liberate the abject and downtrodden slave and extend the 
blessed reality, as well as the beneficent bounds, of free- 
dom to all men throughout the Union. Before this, com- 
pensated emancipation had been honestly proposed and 
urged by the great Liberator ; while by Ben Butler's thought- 
ful, humane device, the escaping slaves had been relieved 
to the extent of being decreed ''contraband of war," and 
thus entitled to liberty and freedom in crossing the line of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 93 

strife. But both of these ameliorations, good as far as they 
went, palled before the great Edict of Emancipation itself 
— the act of Lincoln personally — and to him alone does 
the country and the world owe gratitude and praise for the 
magnanimity of the measure, the relief it brought to the 
deserving objects of it, and the removal forever from the 
nation of the reproach and sin involved in the condition 
and existence of slavery. That the edict of Freedom was 
"a war measure" matters little ; and hardly in any degree, 
if at all, does it detract from the honors of him who had 
long entertained the hope of seeing the slave attain free- 
dom, and who now was happily instrumental in bringing 
about the. blessed consummation. 

As a war measure, it is true, Emancipation was benefi- 
cent and effective, for it touched the South in its tenderest 
spot and gave a blow to the State-Rights doctrine, so dear 
to the Southern and Democratic heart. But even before 
the issue of the Edict much had been gained by the North 
in the war, for New Orleans had fallen before Farragut's 
fleet, and access was thus gained to the waters of the Mis- 
sissippi, made more effective by the possession taken by 
Halleck of Memphis and Corinth. Grant had also fought 
and won the battle of Simon ; Lee had been repulsed at Mal- 
vern Hill ; while Richmond, the seat of the Confederate 
capital, had been seriously threatened. Following the is- 
sue and enforcement of the Edict came the Federal suc- 
cesses at Gettysburg and Vicksburg; the capture of Fort 
Donnelson on the Cumberland river, with the consequent 
surrender of Johnston's and Buckner's forces ; which broke 
the stubbornness of Southern fighting, soon to be para- 



94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

lized by the victories at Chickamauga and Chattanooga, 
by Sherman's march through Georgia and his clever man- 
euvering and driving out the enemy from the Valley of 
the Shenandoah, and by Grant's destruction of Lee's army, 
the capture of Richmond, and the final surrender at Ap- 
pomattox. 

The elation in the North due to this auspicious turn of 
affairs for the Union, and the practical close of the long 
struggle, were an immense relief to Lincoln as well as to 
the entire Northern and Western people, soon now to be- 
come again, with the people of the South, a peaceful and 
reunited nation. The cost of the strife, however, was tre- 
mendous — a national debt contracted of over 3,000 million 
dollars, and the loss or disablement on either side of nearly 
half a million men each, including the dire slaughter on both 
sides in the battles of the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania 
Court House, and at Murfreesboro and Cold Harbor. The 
result to the Federal cause had been, moreover, at the cost 
of disastrous disturbance to the commercial, maritime, and 
other affairs of the country, besides the disorganization 
of the finances and the great depreciation of the 
currency, in spite of Secretary Chase's herculean ef- 
fort to control, improve, and check the effect of this, not to 
speak of the riots over the drafts of men needed for the 
recruitment of the army and the other difficulties of enlist- 
ment. Much of the anxiety and perplexity of all this natur- 
ally fell heavily upon President Lincoln, in addition to the 
oversight and supervision he was called upon to give to the 
army, in its different commands in the field, and to the se- 
lection and appointment of its responsible and guiding chiefs. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 95 

For this illustrious man, who throughout showed consum- 
mate tact in the management of the nation's affairs — 
never inclining on one side unduly to weakness or on the 
other to the usurpation and exercise of autocratic author- 
ity — it was a period of grave trial, with continuous strain- 
ing- of both heart and head. Alas ! that the end to him 
should come so pitifully and tragically after all he had suf- 
fered and borne ! 

The remaining facts of importance to relate in this ''true 
story of a great American" may be briefly narrated. In 
the autumn of 1864, the North re-elected Lincoln for another 
period of rule, and showing public confidence in him and his 
administration it also emphasized the national will to prose- 
cute the war to a close. Happily the prospect of ending 
the conflict was now good, for at this time close upon a mil- 
lion men were upon the Northern muster rolls, while the 
Southern fighting strength was greatly reduced, and the 
shrunken forces under Lee and Johnston were in a precari- 
ous position and in actual want of food. The gravity of 
the situation soon now told upon the Confederates, men- 
aced alike by circumstances and by the pressure and en- 
leaguement of Grant's large force, aided by Sherman's 
cavalry. The closing scene finally came (April 9, 1865) 
at Appomattox, where Lee surrendered the army of North- 
ern Virginia and the end came of rebellion. The conditions 
imposed upon the South were no more irksome to these 
combatants than the laying down of their arms, the ceasing 
of all hostility, and the restitution to the Federal power of 
all public property. Following upon this, the Confeder- 
ate President and Cabinet abandoned Richmond for Dan- 



96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

ville, and Mr. Davis subsequently fled into Georgia, where 
he was captured and after a period of confinement was, 
at the close of the year 1868, magnanimously included in 
a general amnesty extended to all who had taken part on 
the side of Secession. 

In startling and grim contrast to the peaceful close of the 
great struggle at Appomattox came the event which was to 
send a thrill of horror and pain throughout and beyond 
the confines of the country. Five brief days after Lee's 
surrender, namely, on the evening of Good Friday, April 
14th, the loved President Lincoln, who, since the evacua- 
tion of Richmond by the Confederate administration, had 
been visiting and had returned to Washington, sat with his 
wife in a box to witness a play at Ford's theatre. Here, 
in the fleeting hour of social relaxation from the engrossing- 
cares of office, he was struck down by the murderous hand of 
an assassin and died on the following morning. Thus, 
by the weapon of "a demented sympathizer with the cause 
of disunion," came a close to the illustrous career of the 
Great Emancipator and his departure to his reward in the 
hither eternal world. Amid the lamentations and regret 
of the stricken nation which he loved and died for came 
the mighty pageantries which marked the funeral obse- 
quies of the martyred one and the sad passing of his remains 
to their last resting-place at the former home of the patriot 
President, at Springfield, Illinois. 

In a sense, Lincoln's end came as a fitting sequel to, and 
admonition against, Civil War; and though it deprived the 
nati Mi of his wise counsels in the great work that lay be- 
fore \t of Reconstruction, his death and the manner of it 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 97 

were factors of value in hushing all criticism of the man 
and his career, while raising grateful peans to his memory. 
In unity well might the two sections of the country, now 
again become one, pay ceaseless honor to him who had had 
much to do, through the long and appalling conflict, iv 
bringing about the happy issue of Union, and who, in mem- 
orable words, in his immortal second Inaugural, after be- 
moaning the scourge of war and yet foreseeing its close, 
had admonished the Nation to have "malice toward none, ,, 
and "with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as 
God gives us to see the right," besought them to "finish the 
work they were in, to bind up the Nation's wounds, to care 
for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow 
and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish 
a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all na- 
tions." With such words of almost inspired wisdom and 
beauty, and with such a manifestation of kindly and thought- 
ful mood, ever customary in the speaker, we may take leave 
of our subject and close our tribute of homage to the great 
man. 



SUGGESTIONS FROM THE LIFE OF 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.* 

By Prof. Francis Wavund Shepardson, Ph. D., 
University of Chicago. 

TWO contradictory tendencies find frequent expression in 
American life. The one is a disposition to hero-worship 
of public leaders ; the other an inclination to ridicule and be- 
little them. The first is due partly to long prevalent meth- 
ods of instruction, and partly to the peculiar conditions of ex- 
istence here. The second results partly from these same con- 
ditions and partly from the asperities of party politics, which 
have encouraged both caricature and caustic criticism. 

The past has been constantly exalted. We have been 
accustomed to look backward through a haze, which has so 
distorted our vision that the leaders of days gone by have 
appeared as giants looming up through the mists of years. 
This continual glorification has been the bane of all instruc- 
tion. Environment has lent its powerful aid to the same 
end. This pre-eminently is the land of opportunity. The 
saying, ''Every American boy expects to be President," has 
sufficient warrant in the fact that several very unpromising 
American boys have been elevated to that distinguished po- 
sition. If conditions are favorable, a moment may make 
an American one of the Immortals. Just so long as the 
starry banner waves in the sky, the name of Lawrence will 
be revered, because of those heroic words he uttered as he 
was carried from the deck to his death below, "Don't give 



* Originally contributed, Feb. 1899. to Self-Culture Magazine, G. Mercer Adam, 
Editor, and published by The Werner Co., Akron. O. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 99 

up the ship!" A happy word at the right instant, an op- 
portunity for duty seized, an act of heroism, a tragic death, 
these have made American names immortal. 

But there is another side. All is not glorification, for 
one failure to use opportunity, one false move, one sign of 
weakness at a critical time, has doomed a whilom hero to 
the prison house of neglect and forgetfulness. A striking 
instance is that of Citizen Genet, who basked in the smiles 
of an enthusiastic populace now a century ago. For a 
year his name was heard everywhere ; then he was forgot- 
ten. Only the special student of American history knows, 
or cares to know, that for forty years after his ill-advised 
triumphal advance from Charleston to Philadelphia, he lived 
in the United States as a common private citizen. Equally 
suggestive are the facts about Aaron Burr, who had thirty 
years of obscurity after his trial for treason, before death 
came to take him from a land which had once shown him 
honor. These cases illustrate the second American tendency 
- — to disparage and belittle. A sentiment which applauds 
quickly will blame with equal readiness and intensity. What 
party passion does not accomplish, personal bitterness will 
secure, and the result is that every public man has his life so 
carefully scrutinized with microscopic exactness, that every 
detail ; no matter how personal or private, is brought to the 
light to satisfy the imperious demands of a scientific age. 
The wonder increases, that anything remains to be praised, 
that every idol is not thrown down. It speaks well for our 
leaders that so many of them have come out of this search- 
ing examination with honor and increased dignity. 

In an address at Vassar College a few years ago, a well- 



IOO ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

known Harvard professor mentioned a Christmas card which 
he had lately seen in a store window in Cambridge. It had 
upon it the pictures of Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Whit- 
tier, Hawthorne, and Holmes. He found in the very pic- 
tures a sufficient argument for the existence of an Ameri- 
can literature, and then he expressed his opinion that these 
men and their writings might safely be left to posterity. 
"For," he continued, "posterity will judge; that is certain. 
It will judge, too, with unthinking impartiality — without 
acrimony, without tenderness. What mankind wants or 
needs it will preserve and remember ; what mankind finds 
useless it will cast aside and forget. That is what makes 
the past heroic to all eyes not unduly sharpened by the en- 
gines of science. Tt is the sin and the tumult and the pas- 
sion of human life that die. Enthroned in art the beauty of 
the old days lives, and it will live forever.' And although 
science nowadays teaches us the suggestive truth that the 
old days which we have reverenced were, after all, when 
the sun still shone on them, days of turbulence and wicked- 
ness, disheartening as any that surges about us now, that 
same science, one often thinks, is prone to forget the deep 
law of human nature, which makes each generation, in the 
end, remember instinctively, of those that are gone before, 
only or chiefly those traits and deeds which shall add to the 
wisdom and power of humanity." 

No other public man in American history affords such 
opportunities for study as are presented in the life of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. His lowly origin, his meteoric career, his 
tragic death — these yield ample materials for artist and poet 
and writer. From every hidden nook and corner of the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. IOI 

western world eager hands are drawing forth the details of 
his life, and with every added bit of information the mystery 
of his existence becomes the more complex and inexplicable. 
Henry Watterson uses words full of meaning, when he 
says : "A thousand years hence, no story, no tragedy, no 
epic poem will be filled with greater wonder, or be followed 
by mankind with deeper feeling, than that which tells of his 
[Lincoln's] life and death." 

The constant tendency toward glorification already men- 
tioned, and in this special case the added inclination to 
deification, renders the task difficult, indeed, for him who 
attempts in a brief chapter to tell what the life of Abraham 
Lincoln means to the American of to-day. 

The names of great Americans are associated with great 
ideas or movements. The majority link the name of Alex- 
ander Hamilton with federal finances, overlooking his great 
influence in the building up of the central government and 
his determined stand for that central authority as against 
the individual state. So, likewise, the name of Calhoun will 
go down to the coming ages as the synonym for Nullifica- 
tion, much to the prejudice of the historic influence of that 
distinguished statesman. In every case that might be men- 
tioned, the central idea obscures the many other features of 
a life full of illustration of phases of American develop- 
ment. 

In the case of Abraham Lincoln the crowning thought 
always will be the emancipation of the slave, and yet it is 
worth while considering whether, as the years go by and the 
wonderful life is studied again and again, other features than 
this most dramatic one may not be chosen in real explana- 



102 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

tion of the power of this leader over the minds and hearts 
of American citizens. Certainly Mr. Lowell had something 
else in mind than praise for the Emancipator, when he 
phrased his "Commemoration Ode" and called Abraham 
Lincoln "the first American." 

When the thought of emancipation first came into the 
mind of Mr. Lincoln it is difficult to determine. The icono- 
clastic scientific student casts discredit upon many of the 
tales which have been told about his boyhood. Especially 
desirable would it be that one story might be retained. Ac- 
cording to that, one day, in the spring of 1831, two youths 
might have been seen wandering about the streets of that 
quaint southern city of Xew Orleans. In age and stature 
they were men, but in knowledge of the world they were 
mere children. They had come down the river from their 
home in Illinois, bringing a flat-boat loaded with pork and 
beef. They wondered much as they saw the sights of 
the busy southern city, the centre of all the trade of the 
West and South, and gained a glimpse of a life so differ- 
ent from that of the simple quiet of their prairie home. 

Among other places visited was the slave-mart, and there 
for the first time they were brought face to face with the 
evils of human slavery, as they saw men and women, boys 
and girls, sold like cattle, and heard the sad cry of the 
mother as the child was taken away, or the mournful 
lamentation of the father as he realized that he was to be 
separated from his loved ones. The coarse remarks of the 
rude overseers grated harshly upon their ears, and as they 
turned away from the accursed spot and hurried out into the 
pure sunlight, one of them, with quivering lip and clenched 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. IO3 

fist, said to his companion : ''John, if I ever get a chance 
to hit that institution, I'll hit it hard, by the Eternal God !" 

The closing cry of the auctioneer, "Going, going, gone/' 
echoing from the walls of the slave market, seemed to come 
as a mocking defiance of the poor Illinois boatman, — half 
horse, half alligator they used to call such as he, — who had 
just uttered such portentous words. This young man from 
Illinois, "all through his life, was to be a believer in dreams 
and omens. Many a time in his boyhood and youth he is 
said to have declared that he was going to be President of 
the United States, and over and over again during the 
years at the White House he felt the premonitions of his 
sad end. Perhaps even at this moment his soul had some 
mysterious communication with the supernatural, as he lived 
the future in the present, and felt rising within him that 
spirit which in later years was to lead to the Emancipation 
Proclamation and crown his life with glory. 

Every time he went near the borderland between freedom 
and slavery, his heart was saddened by the sight of slaves 
toiling on the plantations, working upon the levees, or, per- 
haps, shackled in irons, on their way to the auction block. 
Such sights were "continual torment" to him, so he after- 
wards wrote to a friend. But no opportunity came to him 
to strike any blow against slavery, until in 1837, being then 
a member of the Illinois assembly, he joined a fellow-mem- 
ber in a protest against a resolution on slaver}-, which was 
probably designed to mollify those who had been disturbed 
by the development of anti-slavery feeling. The language 
of this protest makes dull reading now, but it took courage 
for anyone in that time, when slavery interests were so 



104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

powerful, especially for one who had political aspirations, 
to declare that "the institution of slavery is founded both on 
injustice and bad policy." 

The idea of colonization may have taken root in his mind 
because of his regard for Henry Clay. At one time he 
travelled to Kentucky to hear this Whig leader, and although 
he found his former idol shattered, after he had listened to 
an indifferent speech and had received somewhat cavalier 
treatment, yet this episode perhaps had a formative influ- 
ence in his anti-slavery development. Being elected to 
Congress during the height of the Mexican discussions, Mr. 
Lincoln showed few qualities of leadership, but manifested 
his opposition to the slave interest by frequent votes for the 
principle of the Wilmot Proviso, as well as by the introduc- 
tion of a bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia. This bill, moderate enough from a present day 
standpoint, aroused intense antagonism at the time, and 
although it never came to a vote, it is interesting as show- 
ing the position of Mr. Lincoln twelve years before he went 
to Washington as President. 

A few years passed by with the future Emancipator work- 
ing as a lawyer in Springfield, 111. Then the full meaning 
of the Compromise of 1850 broke upon the people of the 
North, and a new party was formed, the "Anti-Nebraska" 
men, of whom Abraham Lincoln was a local leader in his 
State. His ready wit and stump-speaking ability gave him 
increasing prominence. The Anti-Nebraska men secured 
control of the lower House of Congress. Then they organ- 
ized a new political party on broad construction princi- 
ples, a party which inherited the desires of the Whigs for a 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. lO$ 

protective tariff and internal improvements, and added the 
new principle, that the Federal Government had the right 
to control slavery in the Territories. 

This was the foundation-stone of the Republican party 
— non-extension of slavery into the Territories. The hetero- 
geneous combination of men of varying views was not 
formed to secure abolition, but restriction. Old line Whigrs, 
who had forsaken their party because it would take no pro- 
nounced position on slavery ; the new Whigs, led by Wil- 
liam H. Seward, who came into the party after the Com- 
promise of 1850; the Know-Nothings, who had trie3 to 
create new issues when there was but one ; the Free-Soilers, 
who despaired of success because of the too radical Aboli- 
tionists; and Northern Democrats, who resented the control 
of their party by the Southern slavemasters, — all these ele- 
ments came together to support the old Free-Soil conten- 
tion, "No more slave States. No more slave Territories!" 
The institution of slavery was hateful to many of them, but 
they were not ready as yet to demand its abolition in that 
region where for so long a time it had made its home. The 
radicals were not satisfied with the platform, but the ma- 
jority of anti-slavery men voted for Fremont, who received 
1,300,000 ballots, 114 electoral votes, and was defeated only 
by a few of the accidents of politics. 

At the first national convention of this party, when Fre- 
mont was selected for the candidate, Abraham Lincoln had a 
good following for the second place, but his fame was 
chiefly local, until he entered upon the celebrated debate with 
Stephen A. Douglas, gaining national reputation from be- 
ing pitted against the distinguished leader of the Northern 



Io6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Democracy. Then his life-current began to move more 
rapidly. A visit through the Northern cities, a peculiar 
turn in the affairs of a great nominating convention, and 
the awkward rail-splitter was the candidate of the Republi- 
can party for President of the United States. The Demo- 
cratic party, still strong enough to win many a fight, became 
hopelessly divided. There was an election of intense excite- 
ment, and the party which declared that the normal condition 
of all the territory of the Union was that of freedom won 
the day. Abraham Lincoln, inexperienced in public affairs, 
was President. The orators ridiculed him ; polite society 
scoffed at him ; the newspapers lampooned him ; his party 
leaders, who knew him not, despised his abilities ; seven 
States rebelled before he could be inaugurated ; the belief of 
the North that disunion was only a threat was proved false, 
and yet some cried loudly against coercion ; foreign influ- 
ence seemed about to favor the Southern Confederacy ; 
there was no encouragement for him but the cries of the 
radical anti-slavery people, some of whom wished the "way- 
ward sisters" to depart in peace. Such was the distressing 
condition of affairs when Abraham Lincoln left his neigh- 
bors in Springfield, to undertake what he declared to be 
a more difficult task than Washington had had, and secretly 
entered the capital city, to begin his long and troubled ca- 
reer as chief executive of the nation. 

The war was begun with the views of Mr. Lincoln un- 
changed. He believed that the end of slavery was near, 
no matter what effect the war might have upon it. "I am 
naturally anti-slavery/' he said. "If slavery is not wrong, 
nothing is wrong. I cannot remember the time when I did 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 107 

not so think and so feci. And yet I have never understood 
that the presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right 
to act upon that judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I 
took, that I would to the best of my ability preserve, protect, 
and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could 
not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it in 
my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break 
the oath in using that power. I understood, too, that in 
ordinary civil administration this oath forbade me practically 
to indulge my private abstract judgment on the moral ques- 
tion of slavery. I did understand, however, also, that my 
oath imposed upon me the duty of preserving to the best 
of my ability, by every indispensable means, that govern- 
ment, that nation, of which the Constitution was the organic 
law. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had 
even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save slavery 
or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of govern- 
ment, country, and the Constitution altogether." 

The time had not come for him to fulminate his decree. 
There were many who would fight to sustain the Union, 
who would not engage in a war for the abolition of slavery. 
The President recognized this fact, and waited. Some- 
times to the radicals he seemed to be taking backward steps, 
as, for example, when he kept Union generals from free- 
ing the slaves. But his purpose was fixed. He early saw 
that the recognition of the Southern Confederacy by foreign 
nations would never come, if the war were to be given an 
anti-slavery cast. Xo civilized nation in the world would 
recognize a country which had for its main pillar an insti- 
tution which was held in horror bv the most of mankind. 



Io8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Yet all the time disaster was following disaster to the Union 
cause. Everything looked black for the Northern armies. 
Some great act must be done to stimulate the people. Some- 
thing must be done at once to arouse them to the situation. 

But it was a surprise to Mr. Seward and other members 
of the cabinet, when in July, 1862, the President presented 
them with a draft of a proclamation, declaring the negroes 
free in every state that should be in open rebellion on the first 
of January, 1863. He seemed determined to issue it at 
once. Mr. Seward showed him that it would seem like a 
wail from a badly beaten party, and urged that its publica- 
tion be delayed until victory had turned its tide toward 
the Union forces. The President accepted the suggestion 
and laid the paper away. The invading hosts of the South 
came into Maryland, and then Mr. Lincoln resolved that 
victory of the Union forces should be the signal for his 
proclamation. The battle of Antietam came on the seven- 
tenth of September, and five days later the world was given 
an electric shock of surprise, when the great Emancipation 
Proclamation appeared, proving in the long run the last 
blow to the cause of slavery, and striking the shackles from 
millions of human beings who had grown up in bondage 
in the land of boasted freedom. 

There were some voices of dissent; there was much 
talk of an "abolition war" ; there were to be many days and 
weeks and months of weary longing for peace ; but the work 
of Abraham Lincoln in the slavery matter was practically 
finished when he affixed his signature to this great charter 
of liberties. "I had made a vow, a covenant, that if God 
should give us victory in battle, I would consider it as an 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. '°9 

indication of divine will, and that it would be my duty to 
move forward with emancipation. God has decided the 
matter in favor of the slaves, f am satisfied that I took the 
right course." 

Thus, at last, the boy of 183 1 had had a chance to hit 
"that institution," and he had hit it hard. 

If Mr Lincoln's life had closed then, he wottld stdl have 
earned a place among the heroes of the nation. But the 
tragic termination of his career no doubt had great influence 
in making his name a household word. To many there 
was recalled the picture of Moses, who had led his people 
out of bondage and up to the borders of the promised land 
of freedom, into which, however, he himself was not allowed 
to go Never in the world's history was there such a dra- 
matic ending of a great life. The real root of internal dif- 
ficulty had been discovered and destroyed. The armies 
were'readv for dissolution into the ranks of private citizen- 
ship Peace had come with its sweetening influence. What 
remained was to bind up the wounds, and this might safely 
be trusted to the man who had stretched out his hands ,j 
tender entreaty a few years before, when he said: We 
are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. 
Though passion may have strained, it must not break our 
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretch- 
ing from every battlefield and patriot grave all over his 
broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when 
again touched, as surely they will be. by the better angels 

©f our nature." 

Then the blow fell. It was swift; it was terrible It 
was hard to bear. It could not be understood. "Grief and 



IIO ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

a vague desire for revenge for this cruel and needless crime 
struggled for mastery. This was the feeling all over the 
country, when the heavy tidings of the foul and most un- 
natural murder went forth over the length and breadth 
of the land. Flags that had been flying in triumph were 
lowered to half-mast in sorrow. It is not a stretch of the 
imagination to say that a great wave of lamentation, spon- 
taneous and exceeding bitter, swept over the Republic. Bells 
were tolled and minute guns were fired. For days all 
ordinary business, except that of the most imperative import- 
ance, was practically suspended, and the nation seemed 
abandoned to its mighty grief." 

No one could understand it then ; no one can understand 
it now. Perhaps, while the whole world wept with us over 
Abraham Lincoln's bier, the broken bands of Union were 
drawn closer together in a ministry of sorrow. Perhaps 
the hand of the assassin saved this President from the dif- 
ficulties which beset his successor, difficulties with leaders 
of his party which might have lessened the influence rightly 
earned by his noble Proclamation. It is idle to speculate, 
and in the gloom of that dark April morning the martyred 
President must be left, wrapped in that same mystery which 
attends his whole career, as one attempts to tell the story 
of his wonderful life. 

Comparisons are unfair where conditions are dissimi- 
lar, and yet the temptation is always strong to compare the 
two great leaders whose births came in February, and who 
stand at the head of American statesmen. Such compari- 
son is courted by the words of Mr. Lowell's "Commemora- 
tion Ode" already quoted. And perhaps comparison will 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Ill 

show a helpful suggestion from the life of Abraham Lin- 
coln, a suggestion why, perhaps, he holds so high a place 
in the hearts of his countrymen. 

One picture of the boyhood of Mr. Lincoln shows "a 
very tall rawboned youth, with large features, dark shrivel- 
led skin, and rebellious hair ; his arms and legs long and out 
of proportion ; clad in deerskin trousers, which, from fre- 
quent exposure to the rain, had shrunk so as to sit tightly on 
his limbs, leaving several inches of bluish skin exposed be- 
tween their lower end and the heavy tan-colored shoes; 
the nether garment held usually by only one suspender, that 
was strung over a coarse home-made shirt ; the head covered 
in winter with a coon-skin cap, in summer with rough straw 
hat of uncertain shape, without a band." Such was the 
overgrown youth who made his way through life as best he 
might, a general helper, a boatman, a country store clerk, 
until his homely wit, his keenness of judgment, and his 
clearness of view made him a local celebrity. 

Years before in our history a boy had spent his early 
life in the wilderness. Tall and strong-limbed, active and 
agile, he had tramped through the forests of Virginia as 
a surveyor ; he had learned the arts of woodcraft ; he had 
become familiar with the habits of the red men ; he had 
observed the fighting qualities of his countrymen ; and when 
the time came he stepped forward, armed and equipped, his 
whole training apparently fitting him to lead his fellows 
through the trying period of national infancy. The 
thoughtful student of American history believes that George 
Washington was prepared in ways that he knew not to be 
the leader in the Revolution. The same thoughtful student 



112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

must find the guiding hand in the backwoods' boyhood and 
youth of Abraham Lincoln. Why may we not believe that 
the squalor and penury of his early days were his to make 
him tender toward the lowly and the suffering, and that the 
hard blows of circumstance which developed his giant frame 
were to strengthen the great shoulders for the time when 
they were to bear the worry and the woes of the nation? 
We may well question whether the son of opulence, the 
old Virginia child of fortune, could have had his heart 
stirred by the wail from the cabin of the slave, as was the 
heart of the child of new Virginia, who had walked in the 
paths of poverty and privation. Each had his peculiar mis- 
sion ; the one to lead, when the world knew only the power 
of royalty; the other to prove the grandest type of a new 
democracy, which elevates its servants sometimes from 
the lowest depths of despair to the highest pinnacles of 
power. These men represented two distinct types of Am- 
erican life. The aristocratic country gentlemen, with well- 
filled purse, with rotund face, with velvet clothes, was the 
best representative of the life of the eighteenth century. 
The lank lawyer of the prairies, with face furrowed with 
care, without family tradition of greatness, a self-made man, 
is the ideal of the nineteenth. 

When Washington ruled it was an age of privilege; it 
was an age of aristocracy. Then only the favored ones 
controlled affairs of state, only the few ruled the many. Now 
it is an age of democracy, where the very humblest may 
aspire. No longer is the popular ideal the man in knee- 
breeches and ruffled shirt, who was chosen for the first Presi- 
dent of the United States at the end of the old regime, but 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 I 3 

the "mill-boy of the slashes," the "hero of Tippecanoe," the 
"hero of New Orleans," the "canal-boat mule driver," and 
greatest of all, "Honest Old Abe, the rail-splitter of Illi- 
nois," — men who are popular heroes because they had lit- 
tle sympathy with forms or ceremonies, and believed one 
man to be just as good as another. 

A generation has passed since Abraham Lincoln died. 
Already he has been clothed with such romance, that the 
more light there is shed upon his life, the more difficult its 
interpretation becomes. That he will always be associated 
with the great charter of freedom for the slave is certain. 
That his tragic death will always lend additional halo to 
his name seems likely. And yet, more satisfactory expla- 
nation of his popularity may, perhaps, be found in the fact 
that he always kept close to the plain people, whom he so 
often mentioned, for he was a man "whose meek flock the 
people joyed to be, not lured by any cheat of birth, but by 
his clear-grained human worth, and brave old wisdom of 
sincerity." 



EARLY YEARS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN* 

By GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C. L. (Oxon), Ex-Professor of Consti- 
tutional History, Cornell University, N. Y. 

Our readers need not be afraid that we are going to bore 
them with the Slavery Question or the Civil War. We 
deal here not with the Martyr President, but with Lincoln 
in embryo, leaving the great man at the entrance of the 
grand scene. 

After the murder, criticism, of course, was for a time 
impossible. Martyrdom was/ followed by canonization, and 
the popular heart could not be blamed for overflowing in 
hyperbole. The fallen chief "was Washington, he was Mo- 
ses, and there were not wanting even those who likened 
him to the God and Redeemer of all the earth. These latter 
thought they discovered in his early origin, his kindly 
nature, his benevolent precepts, and the homely anecdotes 
in which he taught the people, strong points of resemblance 
between him and the Divine Son of Mary." A halo of 
myth naturally gathered around the cradle of this new 
Moses. Among other fables, it was believed that the Presi- 
dent's family had fled from Kentucky to Indiana to escape 
the taint of Slavery. Thomas Lincoln, the father of Abra- 
ham, was migratory enough, but the course of his migra- 
tions was not determined by high moral motives, and we 
may safely affirm that had he ever found himself among 
the fleshpots of Egypt, he would have stayed there, how- 



By Permission, from •Self-Culture" Magazine, Edited by G» Mercer Adam. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. I I 5 

ever deep the moral darkness might have been. He was a 
thriftless ''ne'er do weel," who had very commonplace rea- 
sons for wandering away from the miserable, solitary farm 
in Kentucky, on which his child first formed a sad acquaint- 
ance with life and nature, and which, as it happened, was 
not in the slave-owning region of the State. His decision 
appears to have been hastened by a "difficulty" he got into, 
which is set forth in one of the biographies of his son, to 
which we are indebted for many of the facts in this paper.* 

Lincoln senior drifted to Indiana, and in a spot which was 
then an almost untrodden wilderness built a casa santa, 
which his connection, Dennis Hanks, calls "that darned 
little half-faced camp'' — a dwelling enclosed on three sides 
and open on the fourth, without a floor, and called a camp, 
it seems, because it was made of poles, not of logs. He 
afterwards exchanged the "camp" for the more ambitious 
"cabin ;" but his cabin was "a rough, rough log one," made 
of unhewn timber, and without floor, door, or window. 
In this "rough, rough" abode, his lanky, lean-visaged, awk- 
ward and somewhat pensive, though strong, hearty and 
patient son Abraham had a "rough, rough" life, and under- 
went experiences which, if they were not calculated to form 
a Pitt or a Turgot, were calculated to season a politician, 
and make him a winner in the tough struggle for existence, 
as well as to identify him with the people, faithful repres- 
entation of whose aims, sentiments, tastes, passions and 
prejudices was the one thing needful to qualify him for 
obtaining the prize of his ambition. 

"For two years Lincoln (the father) continued to live 
alone in the old way. He did not like to farm, and he never 



Il6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

got much of his land under cultivation. His principal crop 
was corn ; and this, with the game which a rifleman so ex- 
pert would easily take from the woods around him, supplied 
his table." It does not appear that he employed any of 
his mechanical skill in completing and furnishing his own 
cabin. It has already been stated that the latter had no 
window, door or floor. The son slept in the loft, ''to which 
he ascended by means of pins driven into holes in the wall." 

Of his father's disposition, Abraham seems to have in- 
herited at all events the dislike to labor, though his sounder 
moral nature prevented him from being an idler. His ten- 
dency to politics came from the same element of character 
as his father's preference for the rifle. In after-life, we are 
told, his mind "was filled with gloomy forebodings and 
strong apprehensions of impending evil, mingled with 
extravagant visions of personal grandeur and power." 
His melancholy, characterized by all his friends as "terrible," 
was closely connected with the cravings of his demagogic 
ambition, and the root of both was in him from a boy. 

In the Indiana cabin Abraham's mother, whose maiden 
name was Nancy Hanks, died, far from medical aid, of the 
epidemic called milk sickness. She was preceded in death 
by her relatives, the Sparrows, who had succeeded the 
Lincolns in the "camp," and by many neighbors, whose 
coffins Thomas Lincoln made out of "green lumber cut with 
a whip-saw." Upon Nancy's death he took to his green 
lumber again and made a box for her. "There were about 
twenty persons at her funeral. They took her to the sum- 
mit of a deeply wooded knoll, about half a mile southeast 
of the cabin, and laid her beside the Sparrows. If there 
were any burial ceremonies, they were of the briefest. The 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 117 

great trees were originally cut away to make a small cleared 
space for this primitive graveyard ; but the young dog- 
woods have sprung up unopposed in great luxuriance, and 
in many instances the names of pilgrims to the burial place 
of the great Abraham Lincoln's mother are carved on their 
bark. With this exception, the spot is wholly unmarked. 
The grave never had a stone, nor even a board, at its head 
or its foot; and the neighbors still dispute as to which of 
these unsightly hollows contains the ashes of Nancy Lin- 
coln." If Democracy in the New World sometimes stones 
the prophets, it is seldom guilty of building their sepulchres. 
Out of sight, off the stump, beyond the range of the inter- 
viewer, heroes and martyrs soon pass from the mind of a 
fast-living people; and weeds may grow out of the dust 
of Washington. But in this case what neglect has done 
good taste would have dictated ; it is well that the dogwoods 
are allowed to grow unchecked over the wilderness grave. 
Thirteen months after the death of his Nancy, Thomas 
Lincoln went to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and suddenly 
presented himself to Mrs. Sally Johnston, who had in former 
days rejected him for a better match, but had become a 
widow. "Well, Mrs. Johnston, I have no wife and you 
have no husband, I came a purpose to marry you. I 
knowed you from a gal and you knowed me from a boy. 
I have no time to lose, and if you are willin', let it be done 
straight off." "Tommy, I know you well, and have no ob- 
jection to marrying you; but I cannot do it straight off, as 
I owe some debts that must first be paid." They were mar- 
ried next morning, and the new Mrs. Lincoln, who owned, 
among other wonderous household goods, a bureau that 



I I 8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

cost forty dollars, and who had been led, it seems, to be- 
lieve that her new husband was reformed and a prosper- 
ous farmer, was conveyed with her bureau to the smiling 
scene of his reformation and prosperity. Being, however, 
a sensible Christian woman, she made the best of a bad bar- 
gain, got her husband to put down a floor and hang doors 
and windows, made things generally decent, and was very 
kind to the chidren, especially to Abe, to whom she took 
a great liking, and who owed to his good stepmother* what 
other heroes have owed to their mothers. ''From that time 
on," according to his garrulous relative, Dennis Hanks, 
"he appeared to lead a new life." It seems to have been 
difficult to extract from him, "for campaign purposes," the 
incidents of his life before it took this happy turn. 

He described his own education in a Congressional hand- 
book as "defective." In Kentucky he occasionally trudged 
with his little sister, rather as an escort than as a school- 
fellow, to a school four miles off, kept by one Caleb Hazel, 
who could teach reading and writing after a fashion, and 
a little arithmetic, but whose great qualification for his office 
lay in his power and readiness "to whip the big boys." So 
far American respect for popular education as the key to 
success in life prevailed even in those wilds, and in such 
a family as that of Thomas Lincoln. Under the auspices 
of his new mother, Abraham began attending school again. 
The master was one Crawford, who tough t not only reading, 
writing and arithmetic, but "manners." 

Mr, Crawford, it seems, w r as a martinet in spelling, and 
one day he was going to punish a whole class for failing 
to spell defied, when Lincoln telegraphed the right letter to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. II9 

a young lady by putting his finger with a significant smile 
to his eye. Many years later, however, and after his en- 
trance to public life, Lincoln himself spelt apology with a 
double p, planning with a single n, and very with a double 
r. His schooling was very irregular, his school days hardly 
amounting to a year in all. and such education as he had 
was picked up afterwards by himself. His appetite for 
mental food, however, was always strong, and he devoured 
all the books, a few and not very select, which could be 
found in the neighborhood of "Pigeon Creek." 

Equally strong was his passion for stump oratory, the 
taste for which pervades the New World, even in the least 
intellectual districts, as the taste for church festivals per- 
vades the people of Spain, or the taste for cricket the peo- 
ple of England. Abe's neighbor, John Romine, says "he 
disliked labor. He worked for me; was always reading 
and thinking; used to get mad at him. He worked for 
me in 1829, pulling fodder. I say Abe disliked labor, 
he would laugh and talk and crack jokes all the time; didn't 
love work, but did dearly love to joke." He liked to lie 
under a shade tree, or up in the loft of the cabin and read, 
cipher, or scribble. At night he ciphered by the light of 
the fire on the wooden fire shovel. He practiced stump ora- 
tory by repeating the sermons, and sometimes by preaching 
himself, to his brothers and sister. His gifts in the rhetori- 
cal line were high. When it was announced in the harvest 
field that Abe had taken the stump, work was at an end. 

Abe's first written composition appears to have been an 
essay against cruelty to animals, a theme the choice of which 
was at once indicative of his kindness of heart and practi- 



120 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

cally judicious, since the young gentlemen in the neighbor- 
hood were in the habit of catching terrapins and putting hot 
coals upon their backs. The essay appears not to have 
been preserved, and we cannot say whether its author 
succeeded in explaining that ethical mystery — the love 
of cruelty in boys. 

Society in the neighborhood of Pigeon Creek was of the 
thorough backwoods type; as coarse as possible, but hos- 
pitable and kindly, free from cant and varnish, and a bet- 
ter school of life than of manners, though, after all, the 
best manners are learned in the best school of life, and the 
school of life in which Abe studied was not the worst. He 
became a leading favorite, and his appearance, towering 
above the other hunting shirts, was always the signal for 
the fun to begin. His nature seems to have been, like 
many others, open alike to cheerful and to gloomy impres- 
sions. A main source of his popularity was the fund of 
stories to which he was always adding, and to which in 
after-life he constantly went for solace, under depression 
or responsibility, as another man would go to his cigar or 
snuff box. The taste was not individual but local, and nat- 
ural to keen-witted people who had no other food for their 
wits. In those circles ''the ladies drank whiskey-toddy, 
while the men drank it straight." 

Lincoln was by no means fond of drink, but in this, as 
in everything else, he followed the great law of his life 
as a politician, by falling in with the humor of the people. 
One cold night he and his companions found an acquaint- 
ance lying dead-drunk in a puddle. All but Lincoln were 
disposed to let him lie where he was. and freeze to death, 



ABRAHAM UNCOLN. 121 

But Abe "bent his mighty frame, and taking the man in hia 
long arms, carried him a great distance to Dennis Hanks' 
cabin. There he built a fire, warmed, rubbed and nursed 
him through the entire night, his companions having left him 
aJone in his merciful task." His real kindness of heart 
is always coming out in the most striking way, and it was 
not impaired even by civil war. 

Lincoln had a very good constitution, but his frame hard- 
ly bespoke great strength ; he was six feet four and large- 
boned, but narrow chested, and had almost a consumptive 
appearance. His strength, nevertheless, was great. We 
are told that, harnessed with ropes and straps, he could lift 
a box of stones weighing from a thousand to twelve hun- 
dred pounds. In wrestling, of which he was very fond, 
he had not his match near Pigeon Creek, and only once 
found him anywhere else. He was also formidable as a 
pugilist. But he was no bully ; on the contrary he was 
peaceable and chivalrous in a rough way. 

That Abraham Lincoln should have said, when a bare- 
legged boy, that he intended to be President of the United 
States is not remarkable. Every boy in the United States 
says it. But Lincoln was really carrying on his political 
education. Dennis Hanks is asked how he and Lincoln 
acquired their knowledge. "We learned," he replies, "by 
sight, scent and hearing. We heard all that was said, and 
talked over and over the questions heard ; wore them slick 
and threadbare. Went to political and other speeches 
and gatherings, as you do now ; we would hear all sides and 
opinions, talk them over, discuss them, agreeing or disagree- 
ing; Abe was originally a Democrat after the order of 



122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Jackson ; so was his father, so we all were. . . . He 
preached, made speeches, read for us, explained to us, &c. 
. ... . Abe was a cheerful boy, a witty boy ; was humor- 
ous always; sometimes would get sad, not very often. . . 
Lincoln would frequently make political and other speeches ; 
he was calm, logical and clear always. He attended trials, 
went to court always, read the revised statutes of Indiana, 
dated 1824, heard law speeches, and listened to law trials. 
He was always reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writ- 
ing poetry and the like. Abe was a good talker, a good 
reader, and was a kind of newsboy." One or two articles 
written by Abe found their way into obscure journals, to 
his infinite gratification. His foot was on the first round 
of the ladder. It is right to say that his culture was not 
solely political, and that he was able to astonish the natives 
of Gentryville by explaining that when the sun appeared 
to set, it ''was we did the sinking and not the sun." 

Abe was tired of his home, as a son of Thomas Lincoln 
might be, without disparagement to his filial piety ; and he 
was glad to get off with a neighbor on a commercial trip 
down the river to New Orleans. The trip was successful 
in a small way, and Abe soon after repeated it with other 
companions. In the first trip the great emancipator came 
in contact with the negro in a way that did not seem likely 
to prepossess him in favor of the race. The boat was 
boarded by negro robbers, who were repulsed only after a 
fray in which Abe got a scar which he carried to the grave. 
But he saw with his own eyes slaves manacled and whip- 
ped at New Orleans ; and though his sympathies were not 
far-reaching, the actual sight of suffering never failed to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. I2 3 

make an impression on his mind. A negrophilist he never 
became. "I protest," he said afterwards, when engaged in 
the slavery controversy, "against the counterfeit logic which 
concludes' that because I do not want a black wom- 
an for a slave I must necessarily want her for 
a wife. I need not have her for either. I can 
just leave her alone. In some respects she certainly 
is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat 
the bread' which she earns with her own hands, she 
is my equal and the equal of all others." It would be dif- 
ficult to put the case better. 

While Abraham Lincoln was trading to New Orleans, his 
father, Thomas Lincoln, was on the move again. This time, 
he migrated to Illinois, and there again shifted from place 
to place, gathering no moss, till he died as thriftless and 
poor as he had lived. We have, in later years, an applica- 
tion from him to his son for money, to which the son re- 
sponds in a tone which implies some doubt as to the strict 
accuracy of the ground on which the old gentleman's request 
was preferred. Their relations were evidently not very af- 
fectionate, though there is nothing unfilial in Abe's conduct. 
Abraham himself drifted to Salem on the Sangamon, in 
Illinois, twenty miles northwest of Springfield, where he 
became clerk in a new store, set up by Denton Offutt, with 
whom he had formed a connection in one of his trips to 
New Orleans. Salem was then a village of a dozen houses, 
and the little centre of society very like that of Pigeon Creek 
and its neighborhood, but more decidedly western. We 
are told that "here Mr. Lincoln became acquainted with a 
class of men the world never saw the like of before or 



124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

since. They were large men, — large in body and large in 
mind; hard to whip and never to be fooled. They were a 
bold, daring and reckless set of men ; they were men of their 
own minds, — believed what was demonstrable, were men of 
erreat common sense. With these men Mr. Lincoln was 
thrown ; with them he lived and with them he moved and 
almost had his being. They were skeptics all — scoffers 
some. These scoffers were good men, and their scoffs 
were protests against theology 

Abe's popularity grew apace ; his ambition grew with it ; 
it is astonishing how readily and freely the plant sprouts 
upon that soil. He was at this time carrying on his edu- 
cation evidently with a view to public life. Books were 
not easily found. He wanted to study English Gram- 
mar, considering that accomplishment desirable for a states- 
man ; and, being told that there was a Grammar in a house 
six miles from Salem, he left his breakfast at once and 
walked off to borrow it. He would slip away into the woods 
and spend hours in study and thinking. He sat up late 
at night, and as light was expensive, made a blaze of shav- 
ings in a cooper's shop. He waylaid every visitor to New 
Salem who had any pretense to scholarship, and extracted 
explanations of things which he did not under- 
stand. It does not appear that the work of Adam Smith, 
or any work upon political economy ; currency, or any finan- 
cial subject fell into the hands of the student who was 
destined to conduct the most tremendous operations in the 
whole history of finance. 

The next episode in Lincoln's life which may be regarded 
as a part of his training was in the command of 
a company of militia in the "Black Hawk' ; war 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. I -\S 

Black Hawk was an Indian chief of great craft and 
power, and, apparently, of fine character, who had the 
effrontery to object to being improved off the face of crea- 
tion, an offense which he aggravated by an hereditary at- 
tachment to the British. At a muster of the Sangamon 
company at Clary's Grove, Lincoln was elected captain. 
The election was a proof of his popularity ; but he found it 
rather hard to manage his constituents in the field. The 
campaign opened with a cleverly-won victory on the part 
of Black Hawk, and a rapid retrograde movement on the 
part of the militia. Ultimately, however, Black Hawk was 
overpowered, and most of his men met their doom in 
attempting to retreat across the Mississippi. 

"During this short Indian campaign," says one who took 
part in it, "we had some hard times, often hungry, but 
we had a great deal of sport, especially at nights — foot 
racing, some horse racing, jumping, telling anecdotes, in 
which Lincoln beat all, keeping up a constant laughter 
and good humor all the time ; among the soldiers some card- 
playing and wrestling in which Lincoln took a prominent 
part. I think it safe to say he was never thrown in a 
wrestle. While in the army he kept a handkerchief tied 
around him all the time for wrestling purposes, and loved 
the sport as well as anyone could. He was seldom if ever 
beat jumping. During the campaign Lincoln himself was 
always ready for an emergency. He endured hardships 
like a good soldier; he never complained, nor did he fear 
dangers." 

Returning to New Salem, Lincoln, having served his ap- 
prenticeship as a clerk, commenced storekeeping on his own 



126 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



account. An opening was made for him by the departure 
of Air. Radford, the keeper of a grocery, who, having 
offended the Clary's Grove boys, they "selected a conveni- 
ent night for breaking in his windows and gutting his es- 
tablishment." From his ruins arose the firm of Lincoln 
& Berry. 

In storekeeping, however, Air. Lincoln did not prosper ; 
neither storekeeping nor any other regular business or oc- 
cupation was congenial to his character. He was born to 
be a politician. Accordingly he began to read law, with 
which he combined surveying, at which we are assured 
he made himself "expert'' by a six weeks' course of study. 
The few law books needed for western practice were sup- 
plied to him by a kind friend at Springfield, and, according 
to a witness who has evidently an accurate memory for 
details, "he went to read law in 1832 or 1833 barefooted, 
seated in the shade of a tree and would grind around with 
the shade, just opposite Berry's grocery store, a few feet- 
south of the door, occasionally lying flat on his back and 
putting his feet up the tree." Evidently, whatever he read, 
especially of a practical kind, he made thoroughly his own. 
It is needless to say that he did not become a master of 
scientific jurisprudence; but it seems that he did become an 
effective western advocate. What is more, there is conclu- 
sive testimony to the fact that he was — what has been scan- 
dalously alleged to be rare, even in the United States — 
an honest lawyer. 

"Love of justice and fair play," says one of his profes- 
sional brothers of the bar, "was his predominant trait. 
I have often listened to him when I thought he would state 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 12 7 

his case out of Court. It was not in his nature to assume 
or attempt to bolster up a false position. He would aban- 
don his case first. His power as an advocate seems to have 
depended on his conviction that the right was on his side. 
Mr. Herndon, who visited Lincoln's orifice on business, 
gives the following reminiscence : "Air. Lincoln was seated 
at his table, listening very attentively to a man who was 
talking earnestly in a low tone. After the would-be client 
had stated the facts of the case, Mr. Lincoln replied, 'yes, 
there is no reasonable doubt but that I can gain your case 
for you. I can set a whole neighborhood at logger heads; 
I can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless 
children, and thereby get for you six hundred dollars, which 
rightly belongs, it appears to me, as much to the woman and 
her children as it does to you. You must remember that 
some things that are legally right are not morally right. 
I shall not take your case, but will give you a bit of ad- 
vice, for which I will charge you nothing. You seem to 
be a sprightly, energetic man. I would advise you to try 
your hand at making six hundred dollars in some other 
way." 

There is one part of Lincoln's early life which, though 
scandal may fatten on it, we shall pass over lightly ; w e 
mean that part which relates to his love affairs and his 
marriage. Criticism, and even biography, should respect 
as far as possible the sanctuary of affection. That a 
man has dedicated his life to the service of the public is 
no reason why the public should be licensed to amuse itself 
by playing with his heartstrings. Not only as a storekeeper, 
but in every capacity, Mr. Lincoln was far more happy in his 



128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

relations with men than with women. He however loved, 
and loved deeply, Ann Rutledge, who appears to have been 
entirely worthy of his attachment, and whose death at the 
moment when she would have felt herself at liberty to 
marry him, threw him into a transport of grief, which 
threatened his reason and excited the gravest apprehen- 
sion of his friends. In stormy weather, especially, he would 
rave piteously, crying that he could "never be reconciled 
to have the snow, rains and storms to beat upon her grave." 
This first love he seems never to have forgotten. He next 
had an affair not so creditable to him. Finally, he made 
a match of which the world has heard, perhaps, enough, 
though the western boy was too true a gentleman to let it 
hear anything about the matter from his lips. It is enough 
to say that this man was not wanting in that not incon- 
siderable element of worth, even of the worth of statesmen, 
strong and pure affection. , 

"If ever," said Abraham Lincoln, "American society and 
the United States Government are demoralized and over- 
thrown, it will come from the voracious desire of office — 
this wriggle to live without toil, from which I am not free 
myself." These words ought to be written up in the largest 
characters in every schoolroom in the United States. The 
confession with which they conclude is as true as the rest. 
Mr. Lincoln, we are told, took no part in the promotion of 
local enterprises, railroads, schools, churches, asylums. 
The benefits he proposed for his fellow-men were to be ac- 
complished by political means alone. 

Lincoln's fundamental principle was devotion to the pop- 
ular will. In his address to the people of Sangamon 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 129 

County, he says, "while acting as their representative I 
shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which 
I have the means of knowing what their will is, and upon 
all others I will do what my own judgment teaches me . 
will advance their interests." 

Lincoln's first attempt to get elected to the State Legis- 
lature was unsuccessful. It however brought him the 
means of "doing something for his country," and partly 
averting the "death-struggle of the world," in the shape 
of the postmastership of New Salem. The business of the 
office was not on a large scale, for it was carried on in Mr. 
Lincoln's hat— an integument of which it is recorded, that 
he refused to give it to a conjurer to play the Qgg trick in, 
"not from respect for his own hat, but for the conjurer's 
eggs." The future President did not fail to signalize his 
first appearance as an administrator by a sally of the jocu- 
larity which was always struggling with melancholy in his 
mind. A gentleman of the place, whose education had been 
defective, was in the habit of calling two or three times a 
day at the post-office, and ostentatiously inquiring for letters. 
At last he received a letter, which, being unable to read 
himself, he got the post-master to read for him before a 
large circle of friends. It proved to be from a negro lady 
engaged in domestic service in the South, recalling the 
memory of a mutual attachment, with a number of incidents 
more delectable than sublime. It is needless to say that the 
post-master, by a slight extension of the sphere of his office, 
had written the letter as well as delivered it. 

In a second candidature the aspirant was more successful, 
and he became one of nine representatives of Sangamon 



T , ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

County, in the State Legislature of Illinois, who, being all 
more than six feet high, were called "The Long Nine." 
With his Brobdingnagian colleagues, Abraham plunged at 
once into the "internal improvement system," and dis- 
tinguished himself above his fellows by the unscrupulous 
energy and strategy with which he urged through the Legis- 
lature a series of bubble schemes and jobs. Railroads and 
other improvements, especially improvements -in river navi- 
gation, were voted out of all proportion to the means or 
credit of the then thinly-peopled State. 

It is instructive as well as just to remember that all this 
time the man was strictly, nay sensitively, honorable in his 
private dealings, that he was regarded by his fellows as a 
paragon of probity, that his word was never questioned, 
that of personal corruption calumny itself, so far as we 
are aware, never dared to accuse him. Politics, it seems, 
may be a game apart, with rules of its own which supersede 
morality. 

Considering that this man was destined to preside over 
the most tremendous operations in the whole history of 
finance, it is especially instructive to see what was the state 
of his mind on economical subjects. He actually proposed 
to pass a usury law, having arrived, it appears, at the sage 
conviction that while to pay the current rent for the use of 
a house or the current fee for the services of a lawyer is 
perfectly proper, to pay the current price for money is to 
"allow a few individuals to levy a direct tax on the com- 
munity." But this is an ordinary illusion. Abraham Lin- 
coln's illusions went far beyond it. As President, when told 
that the finances were low, he asked whether the printing 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. I . I 

machine had given out, and he suggested, as a special temp- 
tation to capitalists, the issue of a class of bonds which 
should be exempt from seizure for debt. It may safely be 
said that the burden of the United States debt was ultimately 
increased fifty per cent, through sheer ignorance of the 
simplest principles of economy and finance on the part of 
those by whom it was contracted. 

Lincoln's style, both as a speaker and a writer, ultimately 
became plain, terse, and with occasional faults of taste, 
caused by imperfect education, pure as well as effective. 
His Gettysburg address and some of his State Papers are 
admirable in their way. Saving one very flat expression, 
the address has no superior in literature. But it was im- 
possible that the oratory of a rising politican, especially in 
the west, should be free from spread-eagleism. In debate 
he was neither bitter nor personal in the bad sense, though 
he had a good deal of caustic humor and knew how to 
make an effective use of it. 

Passing from State politics to those of the Union, and 
elected to Congress as a Whig, a party to which he had 
gradually found his way from his original position as a 
"nominal Jackson man," Mr. Lincoln stood forth in vigorous 
though discreet and temperate opposition to the Mexican 
War. 

Great events were by this time beginning to loom on th; 
political horizon. The Missouri Compromise was broken. 
Parties commenced slowly but surely to divide themselves 
into Pro-slavery and Anti-slavery. The "irrepressible con- 
flict" was coming on, though none of the American poli- 
ticians — not even the author of that famous phrase — dis- 



L 32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

tinctly recognized its advent. Lincoln seems to have been 
sincerely opposed to slavery, though he was nol: an Aboli- 
tionist. But he was evidently led more and more to take 
anti-slavery ground by his antagonism to Douglas, who oc- 
cupied a middle position, and tried to gain at once the sup- 
port of the South, and that of the waverers at the North, 
by theoretically supporting the extension of slavery, yet 
practically excluding it from the territories by the doctrine 
of squatter sovereignty. Lincoln had to be very wary in 
angling for the vote of the Abolitionists, who had recently 
been the objects of universal obloquy, and were still offen- 
sive to a large section of the Republican party. 

On one occasion, the opinions which he propounded by no 
means suited the Abolitionists, and "they required him to 
change them forthwith. He thought it would be wise to 
do so considering the peculiar circumstances of his case; 
but before committing himself finally, he sought an under- 
standing with Judge Logan. He told the judge what he 
was disposed to do, and said he would act upon the inclina- 
tion if the judge would not regard it as treading on his 
toes. The judge said he was opposed to the doctrine pro- 
posed, but, for the sake of the cause on hand, he would 
cheerfully risk his toes. And so the Abolitionists zverc ac- 
commodated. Mr. Lincoln quietly made the pledge, and 
they voted for him." He came out, however, square 
enough, and in the very nick of time with his "house divided 
against itself speech, which took the wind out of the sails 
of Seward with his "irrepressible conflict." Douglas, whom 
Lincoln regarded with intense personal rivalry, was tripped 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 133 

up by a string of astute interrogations, the answers to which 
hopelessly embroiled him with the South. 

Lincoln's campaign against Douglas for the Senatorship 
greatly and deservedly enhanced his reputation as a debater, 
and he became marked out as the western candidate for the 
Republican nomination to the Presidency. A committee 
favorable to his claims sent to him to make a speech at 
New York. He arrived "in a sleek and shining suit of 
new black, covered with very apparent creases and wrinkles 
acquired by being packed too closely and too long in his 
little valise." Some of his supporters must have moralized 
on the strange apparition which their summons had raised. 
His speech, however, made before an immense audience 
at the Cooper Institute, was most successful, and as a dis- 
play of constitutional logic it is a very good speech. It 
fails, as the speeches of these practical men one and all did 
fail, their common sense and shrewdness notwithstanding, 
in clear perception of the great facts that two totally dif- 
ferent systems of society had been formed, one in the Slave 
States and the other in the Free, and that political institu- 
tions necessarily conform themselves to the social character 
of the people. Whether the Civil War could, by any men 
or means, have been arrested, it would be hard to say ; but 
assuredly stump orators, even the very best of them, were 
not the men to avert it. At that great crisis no saviour 
appeared. 

On May ioth, in the eventful year i860, the Republican 
State Convention of Illinois, by acclamation, and amid great 
enthusiasm, nominated Lincoln for the Presidency. One 
who saw him receive the nomination says, "I then thought 



134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

him one of the most diffident and most plagued of men 
I ever saw." We may depend upon it, however, that his 
diffidence of manner was accompanied by no reluctance 
of heart. The splendid prize which he had won had been 
the object of his passionate desire. In the midst of the pro- 
ceedings, the door of the wigwam opened, and Lincoln's 
kinsman, John Hanks, entered, with "two small triangular 
'heart-rails,' surmounted by a banner with the inscription, 
'Two rails from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John 
Hanks in the Sangamon bottom, in the year 1830." The 
bearer of the rails, we are told, was met "with wild and 
tumultuous cheers," and "the whole scene was simply tem- 
pestuous and bewildering." 

The nomination of the Slate Convention of Illinois was ac- 
cepted after a very close and exciting contest between Lin- 
coln and Seward by the convention of the Republican party 
assembled at Chicago. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 135 



LINCOLN AT SPRINGFIELD, 1861 

From Patriotism in Poetry and Prose, by permission of the 
publishers J. B. Lippincott & Co. 

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." 

There stood a man in the West Countrie, 

Slender and tall and gaunt was he; 

His form was not cast in a courtier's mould, 

But his eye was bright, and his bearing bold. 

A crowd had gathered to hear him speak, 

And the blood surged up in his sunburned cheek; 

Familiar with toil was his outstretched hand, 

For a man of the people was he, 

Who had learned to obey, ere called to command.— 

Such men are the pride of the West Countrie. 

"My friends, — elected by your choice, 
From the long cherish 'd home I go, 
Endear'd by heaven-permitted joys, 
Sacred by heaven-permitted woe, 
I go, to take the helm of state, 
While loud the waves of faction roar, 
And by His aid, supremely great, 
Upon whose will all tempests wait, 
I hope to steer the bark to shore. 
Not since the days when Washington 
To battle led our patriots on, 
Have clouds so dark above us met, 
Have dangers dire so close beset. 



136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

And he had never saved the land 
By deeds in human wisdom plann'd, 
But that with Christian faith he sought 
Guidance and blessing, where he ought. 
Like him, I seek for aid divine, — 
His faith, his hope, his trust are mine. 
Pray for me, friends, that God may make 
My judgment clear, my duty plain; 
For if the Lord no wardship take, 
The watchmen mount the towers in vain.'' 

He ceased; and many a manly breast 

Panted with strong emotion's swell, 

And many a lip the sob suppress'd, 

And tears from manly eyelids fell. 

And hats came off, and heads were bowed, 

As Lincoln slowly moved away; 

And then, heart-spoken, from the crowd, 

In accents earnest, clear, and loud, 

Came one brief sentence, "We mil pray." 

Mrs. Anna Bache 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 137 




ANECDOTES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF LINCOLN. 

LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT SPRINGFIELD BEFORE GOING 
TO HIS INAUGURATION. 

"Then came the central incident of the morning. Once 
more the bell gave notice of starting; but as the conduc- 
tor paused with his hands lifted to the bell-rope, Mr. Lin- 
coln appeared on the platform of the car, and raised his 
hand to command attention. The bystanders bared their 
heads to the falling snow-flakes, and standing thus his 
neighbors heard his voice for the last time, in the city of 
his home, in a farewell address so chaste and pathetic 
that it reads as if he already felt the tragic shadow of 
forecasting fate: 

" 'My Friends: No one not in my situation can ap- 
preciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this 
place and the kindness of these people I owe everything. 
Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed 
from a young to an old man. Here my children have 
been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing 
when, or whether I may ever return, with a task before 
me greater than that which rested upon Washington. 
Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever at- 
tended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I 



I3 g ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and 
remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us con- 
fidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care com- 
mending you, as I 
hope in your pray- 
ers you will com- 
mend me, I bid 
you an affection- 
ate farewell.' " — 
Century Maga- 
zine. 

MONEY AND SELF- 
ISHNESS. 

The following 
stcry was told by 
the Hon. Schuyler 
Colfax, who was 
present at the in- 
terview: 

"In 1862, the 
people of New 
York City were 
greatly troubled, 

(some of them) for fear of a bombardment of the 
city by the confederate navy. Public meetings were 
held to discuss the situation, and the matter at last re- 
sulted in the appointment of a delegation of fifty men 
who represented, in their own right, two hundred millions 
of monev. 




Robert T. Lincoln. Son of Abraham Lincoln, 
and Ex -Secretary of War. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 139 

"These millionaires were to call on the President and 
induce him to send a gunboat or a warship to protect the 

city. 

"When they called they were impressively introduced, 
and the fact that they owned two hundred millions of 
money was made especially prominent. 

"The chairman of the delegation made a very earnest 
appeal for protection, and he also emphasized the fact that 
they owned two hundred million dollars worth of prop- 
erty. 

"In his reply Lincoln stated that he would be glad to 
afford them the necessary protection, but the fact was 
that under the circumstances it was impossible for him to 
furnish them even a gunboat, all the boats being in use 
and the credit of the government at low ebb. 'But,' 
said he, 'if I were worth half as much as you gentlemen 
are, and were as badly frightened as you are, I would 
build a gunboat and give it to the government for the 
protection of my own city.' 

" 'The wise men of Gotham' went away, realizing that 
even the money in their pockets should be one of the fac- 
tors of the war." 

LINCOLN AND THE OFFICE SEEKERS. 

A delegation once waited upon Lincoln to ask for the 
appointment of a certain party as Commissioner to the 
Sandwich Islands. 

They argued their case earnestly, and at last made a 
strong point of the fact that the applicant was in poor 
health, and a residence in that climate would be of great 
benefit to him. 



140 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



The President, however, closed the interview with the 
following remark: 

"Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight 
other applicants for that place, and they are all sicker 
than your man is." 




The Battle of Bull Run, the First Great Battle of the Civil War, 1861. 



LOYALTY TO FRIENDS. 

The mildness of the man, and the tenderness of feeling 
hidden under a rugged exterior, were well known char- 
acteristics of the martyred President. But there were 
times when righteous indignation blazed in his eyes, 
and his voice was raised in defense of the cause which 
he had espoused. 

The pressure of office seekers often annoyed him al- 
most beyond endurance. During the first few months of 
the administration, the frantic horde pursued him day 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 141 

and night. It jarred upon his patriotism to see men so 
eager for position and pelf when the country was just 
entering upon the awful fight for life, and net only this, 
but unpardonable selfishness was often revealed. 

A delegation of California Republicans called on him 
at one time with a list of proposals covering not only the 
principal offices of that state, but indeed of the whole 
Pacific coast. 

Their program was opposed in part by Senator Baker, 
who naturally claimed the right to be consulted respect- 
ing the patronage of his section of the Union. 

After considerable discussion some of the Californians, 
in their eagerness to carry their point, went so far as to 
assail the public and private character of Senator Baker, 
who was an honored friend of Lincoln's. 

The anger of the President was instantly aroused, and 
he exhibited such vehemence and intensity that the party 
of politicians fairly quailed before him. His wrath was 
terrifying when he put his foot down, and declared that 
Senator Baker was his friend, and that no man could as- 
sail him with impunity — if they hoped to gain anything 
by such nefarious conduct they were greatly mistaken. 

The result was that the charges against Senator Baker 
were retracted and ample apologies made, and such a dis- 
position was made of the offices on the coast as satisfied 
Mr. Baker, while the Californians were allowed to have 
their own way to a great extent in their own state. 

DANCE AT MIDNIGHT — HOW LINCOLN RECEIVED THE 
NEWS FROM GETTYSBURG. 

"One evening at a crowded party given by Senator 



142 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Dixon, I was forced by the press into a corner and on 
looking around, found my next neighbor was Secretary 
Stanton. By-and-by Dixon came along and spying us 
said: 'Stanton, tell him the scene between old Abe 




The Battle of Gettysburg, from the Painting by Wenderoth. 

and you the night of the battle of Gettysburg. ' Stan- 
ton then related the following: 

"Mr. Lincoln had been excessively solicitous about the 
result of that battle. It was known that Lee had crossed 
into Pennsylvania, threatening Washington, and that a 
battle had commenced near Gettysburg, upon which, in 
all probability, the fate of Washington and the issue of 
the war depended. The telegraphic wires ran into the 
War Department and dispatches had been received of the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 143 

first day's fight, which showed how desperate was the 
attack, the stubbornness of the defense, and that the re- 
sult was indecisive. All that day and the next Mr. Lin- 
coln was in an agony of anxiety, running over, as was 
his wont, to the War Office to ascertain for himself the 
latest news instead of waiting for the reports to be sent 
him by his subordinates. Then came a long interval 
when nothing was heard from Meade, and the President 
was wrought up to an intense pitch of excitement. 

"Night came on, and Stanton, seeing the President worn 
out with care and anxiety, persuaded him to return to 
the White House, promising if anything came over the 
wires during the night to give him immediate informa- 
tion. At last, toward midnight, came the electric flash 
of that great victory which saved the Union. 

"Stanton seized the dispatch and ran as fast as he could 
to the Executive Mansion, up the stairs, and knocked at 
the room where the President was catching a fitful slum- 
ber. 

'"Who is there?' he heard in the voice of Mr. Lin- 
coln. 

4 "Stanton/ 

"The door was opened, and Mr. Lincoln appeared with 
a light in his hand, peering through the crack of the 
door. Before Stanton, who was out of breath, could say 
a word the President, who had caught with unerring in- 
stinct the expression of his face, gave a shout of exulta- 
tion, grabbed him with both arms around the waist, and 
danced him around the chamber until they were both 
exhausted. 



T -4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

"They then sat down upon a trunk, and the President, 
who was still in his nightdress, read over and over again 
the telegram, and then discussed with him the probabili- 
ties of the future and the results of the victory, until the 
day dawned. 

"Such a scene at midnight between two of the greatest 
Americans whom this generation had produced, to whom 
all wise Providence had committed in largest measure 
the fate of Republican liberty in this Western world, may 
not afford a subject for the loftiest conceptions of the 
poet or the painter, but more than any other incident 
within my knowledge it shows the human nature of 
these two great men, and brings them home to the hearts 
and the hearthstones of the plain people of whom Mr. 
Lincoln was, on whom he depended, and whom he loved. 

"It shows him brooding all through those three awful 
days, with an anxiety akin to agony which no one could 
share — worn and weary with the long and doubtful con- 
flict between hope and fear — treading the wine-press for 
his people alone. And at last when the lightning flash 
had lifted the dark cloud, dancing like a schoolboy in the 
ecstasy of delight and exhibiting a touch of that human 
nature which makes all the world akin. 

"As I look back over the intervening years to the great 
men and great events of those historic days, his figure 
rises before my memory the grandest and most majestic 
of them all. There were giants in those days, but he 
towered above them like Popocatepetl or Chimborazo. 
He was great in character, in intellect, in wisdom, in 
tact, in council, in speech, in heart, in person — in every- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. U5 

thing." — Hon. A. H. Brandege, in N. Y. Tribune. 

LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS. 

In discussion Lincoln often combined wit and humor 
in such a way that it made his opponent ridiculous. Mr. 
Douglas was often the victim of these little sallies during 
the great debates before the people of Illinois in the year 
1858. 

In relation to the abolition of slavery, Douglas con- 
stantly argued or assumed that if freedom were given to 
the slave, it would be followed with intermarriage be- 
tween the blacks and whites. He also charged that the 
Republican party was anxious to repeal the laws of Ill- 
inois which prohibited such marriages. At last Lincoln 
retorted about as follows: 

"I solemnly protest against that counterfeit logic, which 
presumes that because I do not want a black woman for a 
slave, that I do necessarily want her for a wife — I have 
no fears of marrying a negro — it requires no law to pre- 
vent me from doing it, but if Judge Douglas needs a law 
of that sort I will do my utmost to retain the enactment 
which forbids the marrying of white people with ne- 
groes." 

PARDONS. 

Many a distressed father or mother found help in ap- 
pealing to Lincoln. He was the terror of his generals, 
who feared that by excessive use of the pardoning power 
he would destroy the discipline of the army, and Secretary 
Seward was more than indignant on many occasions 
when he felt that the President trespassed to an unwar- 
rantable extent upon his own domain. 



146 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Attorney General Bates, who was a Virginian, once ap- 
proached Lincoln with a special plea in behalf of a young 
Virginian, who had run away from a Union father, and 
enlisted in the rebel ranks. He had been captured, and 
was then held as a prisoner 
of war, and was in very poor 
health. 

The President pondered 
on the matter for a moment, 
and then replied: "Bates, I 
have almost a parallel case 
in which the son of an old 
friend of mine ran away from 
his home in Illinois and en- 
tered the rebel army. 

"The young fool has been 
captured, and his poor old 
father has appealed to me 
to send him home, promising of course, to keep him 
there. I have not seen my way clear to do it, but if you 
and I unite our influence with this administration, I be- 
lieve we can manage to make two loyal fathers happy." 
And he did. 

Schuyler Colfax once told a pathetic story of going to 
Lincoln for a pardon for the son of a former constituent. 

He said Lincoln listened to the story with his usual 
patience, although he was even then tired out with in- 
cessant calls and demands upon his time, and then 
said: "Some of my generals complain that I impair dis- 
cipline by my frequent pardons and reprieves, but after 




Jefferson Davis, President of the 

Southern Confederacy. 

Born 1808. Died 1889. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. i 47 

a hard day's work it rests me, if I can find some excuse 
for saving a poor fellow's life, and I shall go to bed to- 
night thinking happily of the joy that the signing of my 
name will give to that poor fellow and his family." 

And with the tender smile which so often illumined 
those care-worn features, he signed his name and saved 
that life. 

NO PARDON FOR SLAVE STEALERS. 

The great clemency of the Chief Executive was so well 
understood that many demands were made upon him for 
unworthy objects. The Hon. John B. Alley says that 
while he was in congress a petition was sent him, num- 
erously signed, for the pardon of a man who had been 
convicted of illegal slave trading as the commander of a 
vessel engaged in kidnapping the natives of Africa, and 
bringing them to a life of bondage in the United States. 

The President courteously read the letter and petition, 
then drawing his lank figure up to its full height, he 
said: "I believe I am kindly enough to pardon almost 
any criminal, but the man who for paltry gain can rob 
Africa of her children to sell them into bondage will get 
no pardon from me. He may lie in jail forever so far as 
I am concerned." Lincoln evidently thought that men 
of this stamp could serve their country better while in 
jail, than they cculd if they had their freedom. 

A FATHER'S EXPERIENCE. 
A Congressman went up to the White House one 
morning on business, and saw in the anteroom, always 
crowded with people in those days, an old man, crouched 



148 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

all alone in a corner, crying as if his heart would break. 
As such a sight was by no means uncommon, the Con- 
gressman passed into the President's room, transacted 
his business, and went away. 

The next morning he was obliged again to go to the 
White House, and he saw the same old man crying, as 
before, in the corner. He stopped, and said to him, 
"What's the matter with you old man?" 

The old man told him the story of his son; that he 
was a soldier in the Army of the James — General But- 
ler's army — that he had been convicted by a court-mar- 
tial of an outrageous crime and sentenced to be shot 
next week ; and that his congressman was so convinced 
of the convicted man's guilt that he would not intervene. 

"Well," said Mr. Alley, "I will take you into the Ex- 
ecutive Chamber after I have finished my business, and 
you can tell Mr. Lincoln all about it." 

On being introduced into Mr. Lincoln's presence, he 
was accosted with, "Well, my old friend, what can I do 
for you to-day?" The old man then repeated to Mr. 
Lincoln what he had already told the Congressman in 
the anteroom. 

A cloud of sorrow came over the President's face as he 
replied, "I am sorry to say I can do nothing for you. 
Listen to this telegram received from General Butler 
yesterday: 'President Lincoln, I pray you not to interfere 
with the courts-martial of the army. You will destroy 
all discipline among our soldiers. — B. F. BuTLER.' " 

Every word of this dispatch seemed ^ like the death 
knell of despair to the old man's newly awakened hopes. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 149 



Mr. Lincoln watched his grief for a minute, and then 
exclaimed, "By jingo, Butler or no Butler, here goes!" — 
writing a few words and handing them to the old man. 
The confidence created by Mr. Lincoln's words broke 
down when he read— "Job Smith is not to be shot until 
further orders from me. — Abraham Lincoln." 

"Why," said the old man, "I thought it was to be a 
pardon; but you say, 'not to be shot till further orders,' 
and you may order him to be shot next week." Mr. 
Lincoln smiled at the old man's fears, and replied, "Well, 
my old friend, I see you are not very well acquainted 
with me. If your son never looks on death till further 
orders come from me to shoot him, he will live to be a 
great deal older than Methuselah." 

LINCOLN AND STEVENS. 

Thaddeus Stevens, who so often criticised Mr. Lincoln 
very severely for not being aggressive and destructive 
enough, used to tell, with great gusto, this story of his 
own personal experience. 

Mr. Stevens had gone with an old lady from Lancaster 
County, Pennsylvania (his district), to the White House, 
to ask the pardon of her son, condemned to die for sleep- 
ing on his post. The President suddenly turned upon 
his cynical Pennsylvania friend, whom he knew had so 
often assailed him for excessive lenity, and said, "Now, 
Thad, what would you do in this case if you happened to 
be President?" 

Mr. Stevens knew how many hundreds of his constit- 
uents were waiting breathlessly to hear the result of that 



150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

old woman's pilgrimage to Washington. Of course, 
congressmen who desired to be re-elected liked to carry 
out the desires of their constituents. Stevens did not 
relish the President's home-thrust, but replied that, as he 
knew of the extenuating circumstances, he would cer- 
tainly pardon him. 

u Well, then," said Mr. Lincoln, after a moment's 
writing in silence, "here, madam, is your son's pardon." 
Her gratitude filled her heart to overflowing, and it 
seemed to her as though her son had been snatched from 
the gateway of the grave. 

She could only thank the President with her tears as 
she passed out, but when she and Mr. Stevens had 
reached the outer door of the White House she burst out, 
excitedly with the words, "I knew it was a lie! I knew 
it was a lie!" " What do you mean?" asked her aston- 
ished companion. "Why, when I left my country home 
in old Lancaster yesterday, the neighbors told me that I 
would find that Mr. Lincoln was an ugly man, when 
he is really the handsomest man I ever saw in my life. " 
And certainly, when sympathy and mercy lightened up 
those rugged features, many a wife and mother pleading 
for his intervention had reason to think him handsome, 
indeed. 

FREDERICK DOUGLASS ON THE INAUGURATION OF 
LINCOLN. 

"I was present at the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, the 
4th of March, 1865. I felt then that there was murder 
in the air, and I kept close to his carriage on the way to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



the Capitol, for I felt that I might see him fall that day. 
It was a vague presentiment. 

"At that time the Confederate cause was on its last 
legs, as it were, and there was deep feeling. I could feel 

it in the atmosphere here. I 
got in front of the east portico 
of the Capitol, listened to his 
inaugural address, and wit- 
nessed his being sworn in by 
Chief Justice Chase. 

"When he came on to the 
steps he was accompanied by 
Vice-President Johnson. In 
looking out in the crowd he 
saw me standing near by, and 
I could see he was pointing me 
Frederick Douglass. out to Andrew Johnson. Mr. 

Johnson, without knowing perhaps that I saw the move- 
ment, looked quite annoyed that his attention should be 
called in that direction. So I got a peep into his soul. 
As soon as he saw me looking at him, suddenly he as- 
sumed rather an amicable expression of countenance. I 
felt that, whatever else the man might be, he was no 
friend to my people. 

"I heard Mr. Lincoln deliver this wonderful address. It 
was very short; but he answered all the objections raised 
to his prolonging the war in one sentence — it was a re- 
markable sentence. 

'"Fondly do we hope, profoundly do we pray, that this 
mighty scourge of war shall soon pass away, yet if God 



it . 




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152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

wills it to continue until all the wealth piled up by two 
hundred years of bondage shall have been wasted, and 
each drop of blood drawn by the lash shall have been 
paid for, by one drawn by the sword, we must still say, 
as was said three thousand years ago, the judgments of 
the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' 

"For the first time in my life, and I suppose the first 
time in any colored man's life, I attended the reception 
of President Lincoln on the evening of the inauguration. 
As I approached the door I was seized by two policemen 
and forbidden to enter. I said to them that they were 
mistaken entirely in what they were doing, that if Mr. 
Lincoln knew that I was at the door he would order my 
admission, and I bolted in by them. On the inside I 
was taken in charge of two other policemen, to be con- 
ducted as I supposed to the President, but instead of 
that they were conducting me out of the window on a 
plank. 

"Oh," said I, "this will not do, gentlemen," and as a 
gentleman was passing in I said to him, ' 'J ust sa Y to Mr- 
Lincoln that Fred. Douglass is at the door." 

"He rushed in to President Lincoln, and in about 
half a minute I was invited into the East Room of 
the White House. A perfect sea of beauty and ele- 
gance, too, it was. The ladies were in very fine attire, 
and Mrs. Lincoln was standing there. I could not have 
been more than ten feet from him when Mr. Lincoln 
saw me; his countenance lighted up, and he said in a 
voice which was heard all around: 'Here comes my 
friend Douglass.' As I approached him he reached out 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 153 

his hand, gave a cordial shake, and said: 'Douglass, I 
saw you in the crowd to-day listening to my inaugural 
address. There is no man's opinion that I value more 
than yours: what do you think of it?' I said: "Mi. 

fund (gumlrrs JUraics oJ lit itoifefl flairs. 



st ^^ ~¥?£S 7^V^r 

The Famous Last Dispatch of Lincoln to Grant with appended statement by 
Grant, certifying to its genuineness. 

Lincoln, I cannot stop here to talk with you, as there 
are thousands waiting to shake you by the hand;" but he 
smiled and said: What did you think of it?' I said: 
"Mr. Lincoln, it was a sacred effort," and then I walked 
off. 'I am glad you liked it,' he said. That was the 
last time I saw him to speak with him." 

LINCOLN AND REPORTERS. 

Joseph Medill, the veteran editor of the Chicago Trib- 




154 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

une, who was one of the corps of reporters, who followed 
Lincoln in the great debates with Douglas, tells the fol- 
lowing story: 

"You will remember that after Lincoln had been nom- 
inated he was asked to speak at Cooper Union, in New 
York. The eastern people knew nothing about him and 
they desired to see and hear him. Lincoln prepared a 
speech and gave copies to quite a number of us, request- 
ing that we study it carefully and make such corrections 
and suggestions as we saw fit. Well, I took my copy 
and went over it very carefully, and finally made about 
forty changes. The others to whom the address had 
been submitted were equally careful, and they made sev- 
eral amendments. When the speech was finally deliv- 
ered it was exactly word for word with the original copy 
which Lincoln gave us. Not a change suggested had 
been adopted. I never knew whether Lincoln intended 
to play a joke on us, or whether he really believed that 
the alterations were not effective. I never mentioned 
the matter to him, and he said nothing more to me. To 
tell the truth, I was not exactly proud of the part I 
played in the matter." 

LINCOLN'S BRAVERY. 

The following story is told by Gen. Butler: 
"Lincoln visited my department twice while I was in 
command. He was personally a very brave man, and 
gave me the worst fright of my life. He came to my 
head-quarters and said: 'General, I should like to ride 
along your lines and see them, and see the boys and how 




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156 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

I said, "Very well, we will 



tall, easy-riding, pacing 



they are situated in camp.' 
go after breakfast." 

"I happened to have a very 
horse, and as the 
President was ra- 
ther long legged, 
I tendered him the 
use of him, while 
I rode beside him 
on a pony. He 
was dressed,as was 
his custom, in a 
black suit, a swal- 
low-tail coat, and 
tall silk hat. As 
there rode on the 
other side of him 
at first, Mr. Fox, 
the Secretary of 
the Navy, who was 
not more than five feet six inches in height, he stood out 
as a central figure of the group. Of course the staff offi- 
cers and orderly were behind. 

"When we got to the line of intrenchment, from which 
the line of rebel pickets was not more than three hundred 
yards, he towered high above the works, and as we came 
to the several encampments the boys all turned out and 
cheered him lustily. Of course the enemy's attention 
w T as wholly directed to this performance, and with the 
glass it could be plainly seen that the eyes of their offi- 




Gen. Geo. B McClellan, Commander of the Army 

of the Potomac. 

Born 1826. Died 1865. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 157 

cers were fastened upon Lincoln; and a personage riding 
down the lines cheered by the soldiers was a very unusual 
thing, so that the enemy must have known that he was 
there. 

"Both Mr. Fox and myself said to him, "Let us not 
ride on the side next to the enemy, Mr. President. 
You are in fair rifle-shot of them, and they may open 
fire; and they must know you, being the only person not 
in uniform, and the cheering of the troops directs theii 
attention to you. ' ' 

"'Oh, no,' he said laughing, 'the commander-in-chief 
of the army must not show any cowaidice in the presence 
of his soldiers, whatever he may feel.' 

"And he insisted upon riding the whole six miles, which 
was about the length of my intrenchments, in that po^ 
sition, amusing himself at intervals, when there was 
nothing more attractive, in a sort of competitive exam- 
ination of the commanding-general in the science of en- 
gineering. This greatly amused my engineer-in-chief, 
General Weitzel, who rode on my left, and who was 
kindly disposed to prompt me while the examination was 
going on. This attracted the attention of Mr. Lincoln, 
who said, 'Hold on, Weitzel, I can't beat you, but I 
think I can beat Butler.' 

"I give this incident to show his utter unconcern under 
circumstances of very great peril, which kept the rest of 
us in a continued and quite painful anxiety. When we 
reached the left of the line we turned off toward the hos- 
pitals, which were quite extensive and kept in most ad- 
mirable order by my medical director, Surgeon McCor- 



I5» ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

mack. The President passed through all the wards, 
stopping and speaking very kindly to some of the poor 
fellows as they lay on their cots, and occasionally admin- 
istering a few words of commendation to the ward mas- 
ter. Sometimes when reaching a patient who showed 
much suffering the President's eyes would glisten with 
tears. The effect of his presence upon these sick men 
was wonderful, and his visit did great good, for there 
was no medicine which was equal to the cheerfulness 
which his visit so largely inspired." 

ERECTION OF THE LINCOLN MONUMENT AT SPRINGFIELD. 

The movement for the erection of a national Lincoln 
monument was begun immediately after the assassination 
of President Lincoln, but it was not until Oct. 15, 1874, 
that the Springfield memorial was dedicated, that city 
being chosen because it was Lincoln's home when he 
was elected to the Presidency. The monument stands 
in the middle of six acres of high ground in Oak Ridge 
cemetery. It is of massive proportions, of bronze and 
granite, and was designed by Larkin G. Mead, Jr., an 
American artist. Thirty-one artists of national repute 
competed for the design, among them being Leonard 
Volk, Harriet Hosmer, and Vinnie Ream. Some of the 
designs submitted would have cost $5,000,000, but all 
were adjudged as being of artistic merit, and it was only 
after considerable difficulty in making a choice that the 
design submitted by Larkin G. Mead of Brattleboro, Vt, 
was accepted. Whatever may be said in criticism, it 
cannot be denied that the Lincoln monument is an im- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 159 

posing structure. It consists of a central granite shaft; 
or obelisk, rising from a massive, square base to a height 
of ninety-eight feet. Allegorical figures in bronze crown 
the four corners of the pedestal. A bronze statue of Lin- 
coln standing in relief against the shining granite forms 
the central figure of the groups of statuary. The monu- 
ment is located on probably the highest ground in 
Springfield, overlooking the capital and wide stretches 
of Illinois prairie. The statue of Lincoln had been com- 
mended as one of the most natural and lifelike represen- 
tations of the martyred President. He is represented in 
the attitude of making a public address, grasping the 
emancipation proclamation in one hand. He stoops a 
little, he is angular, his cheeks are thin, his forehead 
deeply wrinkled. Old Illinoisans who had known Lin- 
coln from his boyhood pronounced it an excellent like- 
ness. The front of the pedestal on which the statue 
rests, bears the coat of arms of the United States in 
bronze. The American eagle on the shield is represent- 
ed as having broken the chain of slavery, some of the 
links being grasped in his talons, and the rest held aloft 
in his beak. An olive branch, spurned, is thrust aside at 
his feet. 

Memorial hall, in the base of the monument, is fTled 
with various Lincoln relics and souvenirs. One of the 
most interesting of these is a stone from the wall of Ser- 
vius Tullius, presented to President Lincoln by citizens 
of Rome in 1 865. It is a large, irregular slab of sand- 
stone, on which is carved the following inscription in 
Latin: 




LINCOLN MONUMENT AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLS. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 161 

"To Abraham Lincoln, President for the second time 
of the American republic, citizens of Rome present this 
stone from the walls of Servius Tullius, by which the 
memory of each of those brave asserters of liberty may 
be associated. Anno, 1865." 

After Lincoln's death this stone was found in the base- 
ment of the capital at Washington. It is supposed that 
the President, not caring to have a furore raised over the 
incident, had ordered the stone stored away without say- 
ing anything about receiving it. The body of Lincoln 
was removed to the crypt in the monument from a tem- 
porary tomb in the public vault Oct. 9, 1874. The mar- 
ble sarcophagus bears the inscription: "With malice 
toward none, with charity for all. — Lincoln." The 
bodies of Mrs. Lincoln and the three sons, William, Ed- 
ward, and Thomas (Thad), have also been placed in the 
monument. Two crypts are left for the two remaining 
members of the family. 

The national Lincoln monument was built by popular 
subscription. Ex-Governor Richard J. Oglesby was the 
president of the association which had the matter in 
charge. Contributions toward the monument fund came 
from every city and state in the Union and from every 
country in the world. 

LINCOLN'S SADNESS. 

The Honorable Schuyler Colfax, in his funeral oration 
at Chicago, said of him : — 

"He bore the nation's perils, and trials, and sorrows, 
ever on his mind. You know him, in a large degree, by 



162 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

the illustrative stories of which his memory and his 
tongue were so prolific, using them to point a moral, or 
to soften discontent at his decisions. But this was the 
mere badinage which relieved him for the moment from 
the heavy weight of public duties and responsibilities un- 
der which he often wearied. Those whom he admitted 
to his confidence, and with whom he conversed of his 
feelings, knew that his inner life was checkered with the 
deepest anxiety and most discomforting solicitude. Elat- 
ed by victories for the cause which was ever in his 
thoughts, reverses to our arms cast a pall of depression 
over him. One morning, over two years ago, calling 
upon him on business, I found him looking more than 
usually pale and careworn, and inquired the reason. He 
replied, with the bad news he had received at a late hour 
the previous night, which had not yet been communi- 
cated to the press — he had not closed his eyes or break- 
fasted; and with an expression I shall never forget, he 
exclaimed, 'How willingly would I exchange places to- 
day with the soldier who sleeps on the ground in the 
Army of the Potomac!' " 

HIS RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 

There is a very natural and proper desire, at this time, 
to know something of the religious experience of the late 
President. Two or three stories have been published in 
this connection, which I have never yet been able to trace 
to a reliable source, and I feel impelled to say here, that 
I believe the facts in the case — if there were such — have 
been added to, or unwarrantably embellished. Of all 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. j6 3 

men in the world, Mr. Lincoln was the most unaffected 
and truthful. He rarely or never used language loosely 
or carelessly, or for the sake of compliment. He was the 
most utterly indifferent to, and unconscious of, the effect 
he was producing, either upon official representatives, or 
the common people, of any man ever in public position. 

Aside from emotional expression, I believe no man 
had a more abiding sense of his dependence upon God, 
or faith in the Divine government, and in the power and 
ultimate triumph of Truth and Right in the world. In the 
language of an eminent clergyman of this city, who lately 
delivered an eloquent discourse upon the life and charac- 
ter of the departed President, "It is not necessary to ap- 
peal to apocryphal stories, in circulation in the newspa- 
pers — which illustrate as much the assurance of his visi- 
tors as the simplicity of his faith — for proof of Mr. Lin- 
coln's Christian character." If his daily life and various 
public addresses and writings do not show this, surely 
nothing can demonstrate it. 

But while inclined, as I have said, to doubt the truth 
of some of the statements published on this subject, I 
feel at liberty to relate an incident, which bears upon its 
face unmistakable evidence of truthfulness. A lady in- 
terested in the work of the Christian Commission had 
occasion, in the prosecution of her duties, to have several 
interviews with the President of a business nature. He 
was much impressed with the devotion and earnestness 
of purpose she manifested, and on one occasion, after she 
had discharged the object of her visit, he said to her: 
"Mrs. ■, I have formed a very high opinion of your 



1 64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Christian character, and now, as we are alone, I have a 
mind to ask yon to give me, in brief, your idea of what 
constitutes a true religious experience. ' ' The lady re- 




The Old State House, Springfield. Completed in 1840, 

Aiterwards used as the Sangamon County Court House. The Capitol was located 

at Springtield through the efforts of "The Long Nine." so-called because 

the combined height of these men was 54 feet. Lincoln 

was a member of this delegation. 

plied at some length, stating that, in her judgment, it 
consisted of a conviction of one's own sinfulness and 
weakness, and personal need of the Saviour for strength 
and support; that views of mere doctrine might and 
would differ, but when one was really brought to feel 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 165 

his need of Divine help, and to seek the aid of the Holy 
Spirit for strength and guidance, it was satisfactory evi- 
dence of his having been born again. This was the sub- 
stance of her reply. When she had concluded, Mr. Lin- 
coln was very thoughtful for a few moments. He at 
length said, very earnestly, "If what you have told me 
is really a correct view of this great subject, I think I 
can say with sincerity, that I hope I am a Christian. I 
had lived," he continued, "until my boy Willie died, 
without realizing fully these things. That blow over- 
whelmed me. It showed me my weakness as I had never 
felt it before, and if I can take what you have stated as 
a test, I think I can safely say that I know something of 
that change of which you speak; and I will further add, 
that it has been my intention for some time, at a suita- 
ble opportunity, to make a public religious profession!" 
— Frank B. Carpenter. 

LEE'S SURRENDER. 
"On the day of the receipt of the capitulation of Lee, 
as we learn from a friend intimate with the late President 
Lincoln, the cabinet meeting was held an hour earlier 
than usual. Neither the President nor any member was 
able, for a time, to give utterance to his feelings. At the 
suggestion of Mr. Lincoln all dropped on their knees, 
and offered, in silence and in tears, their humble and 
heartfelt acknowledgments to the Almighty for the tri- 
umph He had granted to the National cause." — "T/ie 
Wester 71 Christian Advocate " 

LINCOLN AND HIS ADVISERS. 

At the White House one day some qfentlemen were 



166 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

present from the West, excited and troubled about the 
commissions or ommissions of the Administration. The 
President heard them patiently, and then replied: — "Gen- 
tlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in 
gold, and you had put it in the hands of Blondin to carry 
across the Niagara River on a rope, would you shake the 
cable, or keep shouting out to him — 'Blondin, stand up 
a little straighter — Blondin, stoop a little more — go a lit- 
tle faster — lean a little more to the north — lean a little 
more to the south? No, you would hold your breath as 
well as your tongue, and keep your hands off until he 
was safe over. The government officials are carrying an 
immense weight. Untold treasures are in their hands. 
They are doing the very best they can. Don't badger 
them. Keep silence, and we'll get you safe across." 

HIS FIRST DOLLAR. 

On one occasion, in the Executive chamber, there were 
present a number of gentlemen, among them Mr. Sew- 
ard. 

A point in the conversation suggesting the thought, 
Mr. Lincoln said: "Seward, you never heard, did you, 
howl earned my first dollar?" "No," said Mr. Seward. 
"Well," replied he, "I was about eighteen years of age. 
I belonged, you know, to what they call down South, the 
'scrubs;' people who do not own slaves are nobody there. 
But we had succeeded in raising chiefly by my labor, suf- 
ficient produce, as I thought, to justify me in taking it 
down the river to sell. 

"After much persuasion, I got the consent of mother to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



167 



go, and constructed a little flatboat, large enough to take 
a barrel or two of things, that we had gathered, with my- 
self and little bundle, down to New Orleans. A steamer 
was coining down the river. We have, you know, no 
wharves on the Western streams; and the custom was, if 

passengers were at any of the 
landings, for them to go out in 
a boat, the steamer stopping 
and taking them on board. 

"I was contemplating my 
new flatboat, and wondering 
whether I could make it strong- 
er or improve it in any partic- 
ular, when two men came down 
to the shore in carriages with 
trunks, and looking at the dif- 
ferent boats singled out mine, 
and asked, 'Who owns this?' I 

Chas. Sumner, a Supporter of Lin- answered, SOinewhat modestly, 
coin during his Administration. ittt'11 > IA ~«^ ^ 

'I do.' 'Will you,' said one ot 
them, 'take us and our trunks out to the steamer?' 'Cer- 
tainly,' said I. I was very glad to have the chance of earn- 
ing something. I supposed that each of them would give 
me two or three bits. The trunks were put on my flatboat, 
the passengers seated themselves on the trunks, and I 
sculled them out to the steamboat. 

"They got on board, and I lifted up their heavy trunks, 
and put them on deck. The steamer was about to put 
on steam again, when I called out that they had forgot- 
ten to pay me. Each of them took from his pocket a 




1 68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

silver half-dollar, and threw it on the floor of my boat. I 
could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up the money. 
Gentlemen, you may think it was a very little thing, 
and in these days it seems to me a trifle; but it was a 
most important incident in my life. I could scarcely 
credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than 
a day — that by honest work I had earned a dollar. The 
world seemed wider and fairer before me. I was a more 
hopeful and confident being from that time." 



SAYINGS OF LINCOLN. 

When the white man governs himself, that is self-gov- 
ernment; but when he governs himself, and also governs 
another man, that is more than self-government — that is 
despotism. 

Ivittle by little, but steadily as man's march to the 
grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith. 
Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all 
men are created equal ; but now from that beginning we 
have run down to the other declaration that for some 
men to enslave others is a "sacred right of self-govern- 
ment. ' ' These principles cannot stand together. They 
are as opposite as God and Mammon; and whoever holds 
to one must despise the other. 

So I say, in relation to the principle that all men are 
created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can. If 
we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do noth- 
ing that will impose slavery upon any other creature. 

All honor to Jefferson — to the man who, in the con- 
crete pressure of a struggle for national independence by 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. [69 

a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to 
introduce into a merely revolutionary document an ab- 
stract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so 
to embalm it there, that to-day and in all coining days it 
shall be a rebuke and stumbling-block to the harbingers 
of reappearing tyranny and oppression. 

Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm re- 
liance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored 
land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all 
our present difficulties. 

I would despise myself if I supposed myself ready to 
deal less liberally with an adversary than I would be 
willing to be treated myself. 

In a storm at sea, no one on board can wish the ship 
to sink; and yet, not unfrequently, all go down together, 
because too many will direct, and no single mind can be 
allowed to control. 

I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, 
and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear 
to be true views. 

We will speak for freedom and against slavery, as long 
as the Constitution of our country guarantees free speech, 
until everywhere on this wide land, the sun shall shine 
and the rain shall fall and the wind blow upon no man 
who goes forth to unrequited toil. 

There are two ways of establishing a proposition. 
One is, by trying to demonstrate it upon reason; and the 
other is, to show that great men in former times have 
thought so and so, and thus to pass it by the weight of 
pure authority. 



170 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false ac- 
cusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces 
of destruction to the Government, nor of dungeons to 
ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, 
and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, 
as we understand it. 

I hold that in the contemplation of universal law and 
of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpet- 
ual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fun- 
damental law of all national governments. 

If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal 
truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on 
your side of the South, that truth and that justice will 
surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal, the 
American people. 

EXTRACTS FROM LINCOLN'S SPEECHES. 

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

"The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, 
in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured 
and continued in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was 
further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly 
plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of 
Confederation, in 1778; and finally, in 1787, one of the declared ob- 
jects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was to form a 
more perfect Union. But if the destruction of the Union by one or by 
a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less than 
before, the Constitution having lost the vital element of perpetuity. 

"It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere mo- 
tion, can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances 
to that effect, are legally void; and that acts of violence within any 
State or States against the authority of the United States, are insurrec- 
tionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. ..... 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 171 

"Physically speaking we cannot separate; we cannot remove our 
respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall be- 
tween them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the 
presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts 
of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; 
and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between 
them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous 
or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make 
treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more 
faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? .... 

"Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him 
who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to 
adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulties. 

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in 
mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not 
assail you. 

"You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggress- 
ors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the Govern- 
ment; while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, 
and defend' it. 

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must 
not break our bonds of affection. 

"The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field 
and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this 
broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, 
as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 

DEDICATORY ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG. 

The version here given is a literal transcript of the speech Mr. 
Lincoln wrote out for a fair in Baltimore, Nov. 19, 1863. 

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this 
continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the 
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in 
a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so con- 
ceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great 
battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that 
field as the final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that 



i/2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we 
should do this. 

"But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, — we cannot consecrate, 
— we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, 
who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to 
add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what 
we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, 
the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
they who have fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remain- 
ing before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devo- 
tion to the cause 'for which they gave the last full measure of devo- 
tion—that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in 
vain, — that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, 
■ — and that the government of the people, by the people for the peo- 
ple, shall not perish from the earth." 

FAST DAY PROCLAMATION, MARCH 30, 1863. 

"Whereas, It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own 
their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their 
sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that 
genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize 
the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures, and proven by 
all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. 

"And, insomuch as we know that, by his Divine laws, nations, like 
individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this 
world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, 
which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment inflicted upon 
us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our National ref- 
ormation as a whole people? 

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. 
We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. 
We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has 
evev grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the 
gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and en- 
riched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the de- 
ceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by 
some superior wisdom and virtue of our own." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 73 

A Characteristic Letter from President Lincoln 
to the Mother of Five Sons Slain in Battle 

November 21, 1864. 
Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Depart- 
ment a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that 
you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the 
field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words 
of mine which should attempt to beguile you from a loss so over- 
whelming. But I can not refrain from tendering to you the conso- 
lation that may be found in the thanks of a Republic they died to 
save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish 
of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of 
the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have 
laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. 
Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln. 
To Mrs. Bixby, 

Boston, Massachusetts. 



THE STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

FOR A SCHOOL, OR CLUB PROGRAMME. 

Kach numbered paragraph is to be given to a pupil or 
member to read, or to recite, in a clear, distinct tone. 

If the school or club is small, each person may take 
three or four paragraphs, but should not be required to 
recite them in succession. 

1. Abraham Lincoln was born Feb. 12, 1809, in the county of 
LaRue, in the state of Kentucky. 

2. He first attended school at Little Pidgeon Creek in the win- 
ter of 1819. 

3. Three or four years later he attended Crawford's school in 
the same locality. 



174 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

4. In 1826, he received his last schooling under the tuition of 
Mr. Swaney. To reach this "institution of learning," he walked four 
miles and a half each way. 

5. Later, as a "hired boy," he taught himself as best he' could 
with his rude surroundings, often "ciphering" on a wooden fire shovel 
or anything else that came in his way. 

6. His reading was very limited, being confined to two or three 
books, but fortunately he had access to the great fountain of Biblical 
literature. 

7. Obtaining access to the "Revised Statutes of Indiana," which 
could not be loaned from the constable's office, he early laid the 
foundation for legal study. 

8. In 1831, he went to New Orleans on a flat-boat, with a little 
cargo of pork, hogs and corn. It was here that he first saw some of 
the abominations of slavery and the slave trade. The workings of 
the system greatly depressed him, and drew from him the emphatic 
and almost prophetic exclamation, "If I ever get a chance to hit slav- 
ery, F II hit it hard." 

9. It was after his return from this trip that he found an English 
grammar, and mastered it by the light of pine knots during the long 
winter evenings. 

10. The Black Hawk war broke out in 1832, and Lincoln enlist- 
ed. Although without military experience, his personal popularity 
made him the captain of his company. 

11. After the war was over he became a candidate for the State 
Legislature, and although he was defeated, the campaign was of great 
service to him in the way of experience. 

12. He began the study of law with borrowed books, and put his 
own knowledge into practice by drawing up legal papers, and also 
conducting small cases without remuneration. 

13. Many volumes pertaining to the sciences now found their 
way into his hands, and also some of the standard works of literature. 

14. He then sought and obtained the position of deputy surveyor 
of Sangamon County, and in this work he became an expert. He was 
often sought for as a referee when trouble arose concerning boun- 
dary lines, etc. 

15. From 1833 to 1836 he was the postmaster of New Salem, 
having received the appointment as a Jackson democrat. 

16. It was during this time that he again became a candidate fo r 
the Legislature. His campaign was personally conducted, and this 
time he was the victorious candidate. 

17. It was at this session of the legislature that he met his great 
opponent, Stephen A. Douglas. In time, he fully accorded him the 
titie of "The Little Giant." 

18. In August of 1835, Lincoln met with a terrible loss, being no 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 175 

less than the death of Anne Rutledge, the beautiful girl to whom he 
was betrothed. Nearly thirty years afterward he spoke lovingly of 
her to an old friend. "The death of this fair girl," said Mr. Herndon, 
"shattered Lincoln's happiness. He threw off his infinite sorrow only 
by leaping wildly into the political arena." 

19. In 1836, he was again a candidate for the legislature. He 
was self-nominated, for this was before the days of caucuses and con- 
ventions. In the New Salem Journal he announced his platform, 
which contained a suffrage plank to the effect that all men and 
women who either bore arms.or paid taxes, should be allowed to vote. 

20. Lincoln was elected in triumph. Sangamon County, which 
had usually gone Democratic, voting the Whig ticket by more than 
four hundred majority. 

2i. In 1837, Mr. Lincoln moved to Springfield, where his active 
life as a lawyer began, the State Capital having been moved about 
that time from Vandalia. 

22. In November of 1842, he was married to Miss Mary Todd. 

23. Mr. Lincoln was first elected to Congress in 1846. 

24. One year later he took his seat as a member of the Thirtieth 
Congress. Other notable members at this time were Ex-President 
John Quincv Adams, Andrew Johnson, Alex. H. Stephens, besides 
Robert Toombs, Robert B. Rhett, and others. In the Senate were 
Daniel Webster, Simon Cameron, Lewis Cass, John C. Calhoun and 
Jefferson Davis. 

25. At the close of his Congressional services in 1849, Mr. Lin- 
coln returned to Springfield and resumed the practice of law, al- 
though his fees were considered by his legal brethren "ridiculously 
small." 

26. During the contest in Kansas, in 1855, Lincoln's views on 
the subject of slavery were fully expressed in a radical letter to Mr. 
Speed. 

27. In 1858, Lincoln held his notable debates with Stephen A. 
Douglas. 

28. In i860, Abraham Lincoln received the nomination of the Re- 
publican party for the presidency, Stephen A. Douglas was the nom- 
inee of the Democratic party and these two prominent men were 
again rivals. 

29. Threatening times succeeded his election with the whole 
country aroused by threats of secession. 

30. In March of i86i,he was inaugurated amidst the most om- 
inous conditions that a new president was ever called upon to face. 

31. He delivered an inaugural address which for wisdom, and 
consistency has never been surpassed. 

32. Following the fall of Fort Sumter, Mr. Lincoln issued on the 
i5th"of April a call for 75000 volunteers. 



i 7 6 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 




33. Four days later he issued a proclamation for the blockade 
of Southern ports. 

34. In 1862, he met with the terrible loss by death of his son Wil- 
lie. In the midst of this great trial his thoughts reverted to his own 
mother whom he lost when a child, "I remember her prayers," he said 
"they have always followed me — they have clung to me all my life." 

35. During the long war he 
was everywhere busy doing ev- 
erything possible for the com- 
fort of the soldiers, especially 
the sick and wounded. 

36. On Jan. 1st, 1863, the 
Emancipation Proclamation was 
issued, 

37. Following logically the 
policy of the Emancipation Act, 
ne began the experiment of in- 
troducing colored troops into 
the armies of the United States. 

38. In December of 1863, 
he made General Grant the 
commander-in-chief of all the 
Union armies. 

39. In 1864, Abraham Lin- 
coln was again elected president 
of the United States. 

40. About the middle of August 1864, an attempt was made upon 
Lincoln's life one evening as he was riding back from the Soldier's 
Home._ The bullet of the would-be assassin passed through the silk 
hat which the president wore, but at his request the matter was kept 
very quiet. 

41. Early in December he submitted to Congress his fourth an- 
nual niessage, and this was followed by the passage of the Constitu- 
tional Amendment forever prohibiting slavery in the territory of the 
United States. 

42. On March 4th, 1865, Mr. Lincoln was again inaugurated as 
President of the United States. 

45 The great rebellion was brought to a successful close with 
great rejoicing over General Lee's surrender. 

44. On the afternoon before his death he signed a pardon for a 
soldier who was under a death sentence. This act of mercy was his 
last official order. 

45. On the 14th of April he fell by the hand of an assassin and 
the nation was in mourning. 



Gen. II S Grant. 
Born 1822. Died 1885. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 77 

FIRST THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION 
OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN 

It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victories to 
the land and naval forces engaged in suppressing an internal rebel- 
lion and at the same time to avert from our country the dangers of 
foreign intervention and invasion. It is therefore recommended 
to the people of the United States that at their next weekly assem- 
blages in their accustomed places of public worship which shall 
occur after notice of this proclamation shall have been received, 
they especially acknowledge and render thanks to our Heavenly 
Father for these inestimable blessings, that they then and there 
implore spiritual consolation in behalf of all who have been brought 
into affliction by the casualties and calamities of sedition and civil 
war, and that they reverently invoke the divine guidance for our 
national counsels to the end that they may speedily result in the 
restoration of peace, harmony, and unity throughout our borders 
and hasten the establishment of fraternal relations among all the 
countries of the earth. 

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the 
seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the City of Washington, this ioth day of April, 
IsealI A.D. 1862, and of the Independence of the United States 
the eghity-sixth. Bv the President: 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of Slate. 



QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. 

Where and when was Abraham Lincoln born ? What canyous&t 

of his own mother? What can you say of his step-mother? What 
sort of a man was his father? What were the early educational ad- 
vantages of Abraham Lincoln? Describe his early home? I Thai 
books furnished his early reading? From whence did he derive his 
first knowledge of law ? What can you say of his boyish character? 
How did he earn his first dollar? II 'hat was his first business ven- 
ture? What was his experience in the Black J lawk War? What 
can you say of his first political work? When and where WuS he a 
postmaster? Describe his first political canvass? Describe his per- 
sonal appearance ? 

Describe his second political campaign ? I I 'hen and where did he 
first meet Stephen A. Douglas? What can you say of his relation t: 
national politics in connection with the legislature of/8j6-j 

II "hat were his early views on the subject of slavery ? II hat can say 
of Elijah P. Lovejoyf What relation did Lincoln sustain to the can: 



178 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

paign of 1844? What can you say of the Wilmot Proviso? What did 
Caton say of Lincoln? What can you say of Lincoln s eulogy upon 
Henry Clay? 

Describe the long rivalry between Douglas and Lincoln ? Des- 
cribe his relatio7i with the republican convention of Lllinois in /8j8? 
Describe his address at Cooper Institute in Feb. of i860 ? Describe his 
first nomination for the preside?icy ? Give a synopsis of his last fare- 
well to citizens of Springfield? Give an account of his first in- 
augural? Recite briefly the principal events connected with his first 
term? Give a synopsis of his second inaugural address? Give a 
brief synopsis of his address at Gettysburg? 

Describe his character and also his Personal appearance while he 
was President? In what way did he usually exercise executive cle7n- 
ency ? Mention a few instances of this ? What was his last official act? 
When and how did he die ? What can you say of the natio?ial grief? 
Describe some of the scenes connected with the passing of his body from 
the Capital to the to??ib ? 

In reviewing his career what do you consider the most important 
of his official acts? What is the general verdict of history iipon the 
character of the man ? 

SUBJECTS FOR SPECIAL STUDY 

/. The Nebraska Controversy. 

2. The humor of Lincoln, 
j. The eloquence of Lincoln. 

4. Contrast betwee?i Douglas and Lincoln. 

3. The Emancipation Proclamation. 

6. Lincoln and Seward. 

7. Lincoln and Horace Greeley. 

8. Lincoln and Stanton. 

o. Lincoln as a Statesman. 



CHRONOLOGICAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF LINCOLN. 

1809. Born in LaRue County, Kentucky, Feb. 12. 
18.16. Moved with his parents to Indiana. 

1830. Moved with his father and step-mother to Macon County, 111. 
£831. Constructed a flat-boat and made a successful trip to New Or* 
leans and back. 

1832. Served as clerk in the store of Mr.Offutt. Captain of Volunteen. 

in Black Hawk War. 

1833. Embarked in politics and studied law. Defeated for the legis* 

lature. Appointed postmaster at New Salem, 111. 
1834-1840. Elected successively to the legislature. Making Springs 

field his home. 
1842. November, married Mary Todd, daughter of the Hon. Robert 

S. Todd of Lexington, Ky. 
1846. Elected to Congress over his competitor, Rev, Peter Cartwrigh* 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



T70 



1848. Made speeches in favor of General Taylor for the Presidency. 

1854. Made earnest speeches in favor of the Anti-Nebraska move- 

ment. 

1855. Defeated for the United States Senate by Lyman Trumbull. 

Declined the offered nomination for Governor of Illinois. 

1856. Headed the Electoral ticket for General Fremont as President. 
1858. Engaged in the famous debates with Stephen A. Douglas. 

1860. Delivered his speech in Cooper Institute, New York City, Feb. 

27. Received the Republican Nomination for the Presidency, 
at Chicago, May. Elected to the Presidency November 6. 

1861. Delivered his wonderful inauguration address at Washington, 

D. C, March 4. Called for 75,000 men to preserve the Union 
April 15. Blockade of Southern ports declared April 19. 
Called for 42,034 Volunteers May 3. First Message to Con- 
gress July 4. Appointed a Fast Day on August 12, for the 
last Thursday in September. 

1862. Sent special Message to Congress for the gradual abolishment 

of slavery, March 6. Signed bill for the abolishing of slavery 
in the District of Columbia April 16. Preliminary Proclama- 
tion of Emancipation issued September 22. Annual Message 
to Congress Dec. 1. _ _ 

1863. Final Proclamation of Emancipation made Jan. 1. Sent reply 

to the testimonial of Sympathy and Confidence from the 
workingmen of Manchester, England, Jan. 19. Inaugurated 
the custom of setting apart a common day throughout the 
land for thanksgiving— the last Thursday in November. The 
renowned dedicatory address at the consecration of the Na- 
tional Cemetery at Gettysburg,. Nov. 19. Annual Message 
to Congress Dec. 9. 

1864. Re-elected President, November 8. 

1865 Delivered second inaugural address, one of the greatest state 
papers that history has preserved. Entered Richmond with 
the Union Army, April 11. Assassinated by J. Wilkes Booth, 
April 14. Buried at Springfield, Illinois, May 4. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

For those who wish to read more extensively, the following 
works are especially commended: ,«,,/- r 

"Life of Lincoln," by Nicolay & Hay, Ten vols. The Centurv Co. 
"Life of Lincoln," by Herndon & Weik. Two vols. Appleton & Co. 
"Life of Lincoln," by Ward H. Lamon. J. R. Osgood & Co. 
"Life of Lincoln," by Isaac N. Arnold. A. C. McClurg & Co. 
"Life of Lincoln," by John T. Morse, Jr. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
"Life on the Circuit with Lincoln," by Henry C. \\ hitney. hstes & 

Lauriet. _ , __ , „ „ „ 

"Life of Lincoln,'" by Wm. O. Stoddard. Fords, Howard & Hulbert 
"Life of Lincoln," by J. G. Holland. 



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